14-05-2025
2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680 First Drive: Extravagant Comfort
What constitutes extravagance? Webster's defines it as 'Lacking restraint in spending money or using resources.' We're certainly in no position to challenge Head of Mercedes-Maybach, Daniel Lescow's description of the new Maybach SL680 as his brand's most extravagant offering. Priced around a quarter-million dollars and able to carry just two hyper-elite personalities and perhaps a picnic hamper, surely it shan't sell on practicality.
Closing our first look at the SL680, we fretted that, like its Mercedes-AMG SL stablemates, the Maybach might struggle to deliver price- and brand-commensurate levels of ride comfort and that, despite being blanketed in wealth-signaling Maybach emblems, the two curated color ambiances announced at the time wouldn't offer the personalization required to trigger an oligarch's extravagance-splurge.
Well, nine months later we can reassure the morbidly affluent that this Maybach should cosset their derrieres sufficiently and will indeed provide enough color variation to dramatically lower the likelihood of encountering a fellow plutocrat on the boulevard or valet court piloting an identical bauble.
Comfort Promise Fulfilled
Since our first introduction to the R232-generation SL circa 2022, Mercedes and AMG have contended that the seventh-gen car's sophisticated hydraulically interlinked, adaptively damped, steel-sprung suspension would offer sufficient 'bandwidth' to ride as comfortably or more so than previous generations while also leveling up the car's appetite for racetrack work. Heretofore, we've never found their comfort claims to ring true, as the cars' rides remained mostly sports-car firm. This Maybach, it would seem, finally broadens that bandwidth sufficiently to validate that claim.
Comfort By the Numbers
The Maybach suspension-tuning team domesticates these racy suspenders, providing the supple cosseting ride a Maybach customer likely expects, by softening everything. It reduces the front and rear spring rates by 25 percent (from 80 to 60 N/mm) and 22 percent (from 45 to 35 N/mm) respectively, by retuning the bushing rates, and by revising the adaptive damping valves so that they flow more fluid.
This enables greater sensitivity to road inputs. Wheel camber is reduced somewhat, to reflect the SL680's less track-focused use case. And an exclusive 'Maybach Mode' setting is added to the suspension menu, which noticeably relaxes the throttle, steering feel, and suspension firmness even further beyond Comfort mode (which remains the default setting the car starts in).
How It Feels
We spent a few hours on hilly serpentine roads that link various tony resorts dotting the shoreline of Spain's party island, Ibiza, sampling the various modes. We spent most of the drive in Maybach mode and were pleased to find that AMG's Active Ride Control cross-linking system still maintained a very even keel, resisting virtually all dive, pitch, and roll. The less aggressive camber didn't noticeably degrade this SL's ability to negotiate mountain switchbacks at or near the limits of the tires' adhesion.
The softer springs, and new Maybach mode damping curve—paired with the high-flow valve—traverse potholes and speed bumps with far less jarring impact, while still preventing the ride from becoming floaty. And if the above-mentioned gear seems to effectively carpet the road, the new bushing package gives it a thicker layer of underlayment. Traversing the same stretch of road in Comfort versus Maybach mode introduces just a touch more road feel—like the carpet nap just got slightly thinner. Sport mode swaps the carpet and pad for a commercial rubber-backed peel-and-stick feel. Interestingly, the car remained fun to send through the corners at high g-loading even in Maybach mode, despite the dulled steering feel.
Reduced Responsiveness
Drop the hammer in Maybach mode and it seems like the engine suffers turbo lag. Switch back to Sport mode and you feel AMG 63-level throttle response, while also sharpening the steering responsiveness. Another apparent benefit of Maybach mode's throttle programming is that when gently starting from a stop, we never felt any juddering from the wet-clutch launch device, as we've reported on in other SLs.
Note that we also chose to leave the Maybach-designed driver-information screen up, featuring speed and tach readouts that resemble those of the stunning Maybach Vision 6 Concept's nacelles, though we resisted leaving the album-art option live on the center section, as it adds another dozen or so M-M logos to that area.
Chris-Craft Burble
The Maybach-exclusive exhaust, featuring fiberglass batting inside the muffler, strives for silence in Maybach and Comfort modes and comes admirably close, while Sport mode opens a valve to bypass that chamber while also broadcasting more synthetic sound through the cabin speakers (ensuring that Sport-mode sounds nearly the same, top up or down). That curated sound trades some AMG racecar emulation for something more akin to the inboard V-8 music of a classic wooden skiff.
Improvements for Other SLs
One 'hallelujah' debuting in the SL680 and extending to all SLs soon is the fitment of proper mechanical switches to operate the power-folding top. No more scorching a finger by sliding and holding a virtual button on a sunbaked infotainment screen like in other SLs. And to avoid confusion, separate buttons are clearly marked to raise and lower the standard Maybach-logo-adorned top.
Now, if we could only impress upon Mercedes the wisdom of making this Comfort-mode suspension tuning setup available—without the Maybach mode damping curve—on a revived 'Mercedes-Benz SL' model. We feel certain that folks trading up from any of the earlier boulevardier SL generations would strongly prefer that setup to any of the AMG ones for comfort. Maybe an inline-six-powered SL450 could slip in comfortably under the AMG models, price- and performance-wise?
Manufaktur to the Rescue
When first presented, Maybach played up its 'chef's tasting menu' curated design concept, announcing only two Monogram Series offerings: Opalite White Magno (matte) or tinted-clearcoat Garnet Red Metallic bodywork set off with a black hood and top over a shocking Crystal White interior.
Well, fear not, individualists. Mercedes-Maybach has approved a further 50 colors from its catalog of 1,000 durability-tested hues, making any of them available with a hood in the same color, in black, or in black with Maybach emblems dot-matrix printed all over it, Louis Vuitton handbag style. For now, however, white remains the only factory interior offering to be announced. As Fitzgerald quipped, 'The rich are different from you and I.' Apparently their denim is more colorfast.
About that Logo Hood …
The Maybach SL680 is the first car to utilize this new PixelPaint process, involving a high-precision print head with 1,000 nozzles, each capable of depositing 20-50-micron diameter paint droplets at a rate of more than 1,000 drops per second with no overspray or mist. Starting with an Obsidian Black hood and one coat of clear, Graphite Gray emblems are printed on, and then two coats of clear are applied and hand sanded until the logos can no longer be felt, before a fourth clear layer goes on. The European price for this hood option is 6,500 Euros.
How Does the Maybach SL680 Measure Up?
Even at this stratospheric price level, buyers have choices, most of which seem more exclusive, because no less-expensive versions share their bodywork. These include the Aston Martin DB12 V8 Volante ($269,000), the Maserati GranCabrio ($203,000 for gas or $206,700 for electric). Then there is the Bentley Continental GTC for those whose base-price budgets can stretch some $82-grand higher. Those cars mostly boast higher output, but nobody's racing them for pink slips, and those boutique brands don't necessarily enjoy the reliability reputation, brand heritage, or dealer network of Mercedes-Benz and Maybach.
As mere proletarians, we cringe at the zillion M-M logos carpeting that optional hood, the standard convertible top, the grilles, the door panels, etc. Maybe that's why we're so hopeful Mercedes will grant us an 'affordable' M-M-free SL450 that rides like this.
