2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class

2014 Mercedes Benz S-Class sedan is both a luxury icon and a technological powerhouse, scarily close at times to being a self-driving car. Available in rear-drive and all-wheel-drive forms, the S550 starts close to $100,000. Exquisite in execution, the new S-Class casts a long light that luxury sedans like the BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, Jaguar XJ and Lexus LS are constantly trying to bask in. In luxury and technology terms, the S-Class more than delivers, but if you also have to be considered performance royalty, the S63 AMG bows at $140,000. And while its options may not deliver palm fronds and grapes, the 2014 S-Class can give you the equivalent of a hot-stone massage and an aroma-therapy session.

Dropping yourself into a 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan means staring face-to-face at a starting price of around $94,000 for an S550, $3,000 more for the 4Matic model. Or, you can really put a ring on exclusivity with the $140,000 S63 AMG. If impulse control is not your specialty, options and option packages can easily add thousands (or tens of thousands) to your price. This makes the S550 the priciest luxury sedan in a roomful of V8 competitors – about a $2,000 hike over the BMW 7 Series, $15,000 over an Audi A8 – but those dreams don’t come quite so wonderfully over-equipped as the Mercedes. To see what S-Class buyers in your area are paying, check out the Kelley Blue Book Fair Purchase Price. Over time, the S-Class will hold its value better than its German rivals, but the magic resale value of a Lexus LS 460 still reigns supreme.

With a good bit of its structure built out of aluminum, the 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class feels light for its size as you maneuver it through its paces. As quiet inside as an empty cathedral, the new sedan also feels stiffer – in the positive “moving-as-a-single-unit” way. The ride of the standard S-Class’s Airmatic cushion-of-air suspension with adaptive damping is even – firm without being jarring and comfortable without slurring drunkenly into corners. The S550’s twin-turbocharged V8 engine is a model of healthy acceleration, smoothed out into elegance with the help of its 7-speed automatic transmission, which engages the now nearly ubiquitous fuel-saving stop/start feature (the engine shuts off when you pull up to a red light, starting again when you lift your foot off the brake pedal). If you need your S-Class to breathe fire, the 2014 S63 AMG 4Matic or the 2015 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG (621 horsepower) will endear.

The new S-Class is not about leather and wood, both standard at this level of luxury car, naturally. Rather S-Class is more about the executive dimensions of every seat in the car, the emphasis on comfort, and the massive skyscape offered by the Panoramic Sunroof. For the driver, two 12.3-inch high-resolution color screens display driving information and infotainment along with car-system controls. This new Mercedes sedan is also the king of LED lighting – dramatically longer lifetimes and greater energy efficiencies – with not a single lightbulb used in the entire car, inside or out.

Swept back but still all grown up, the new S-Class uses a few tricks cribbed from the exquisite 1st-generation CLS to portray a fastback profile. From the blown-back shape of the headlights to the elegant flow of the C-pillar and the converging crease-lines in the profile, the 2014 S-Class feels low-slung and finessed without sacrificing any interior roominess or room in the trunk, which holds a generous 16.3 cubic feet of cargo.