Mercedes-Maybach S680 review: the big Mercedes V12 you can barely hear

Woohoo, a big, fat, meaty Mercedes V12! Perhaps there’s some goodness left in th-

Here’s a thought: if a 6.0-litre V12 in a Mercedes-Maybach S680 makes 604bhp and 663lb ft (899Nm) of torque, and nobody’s nearby to notice it, does it… actually make any noise?

Maybe it’s a Mercedes-style philosophical exercise: asking why you’d specify a vast, outrageously potent twelve-cylinder engine for a car engineered specifically to hush and smother that very engine.

Maybe it’s also a hint of what’s coming. If this V12 is, in some ways, an indulgent placeholder, Maybach could later swap it for a huge battery and an electric motor without anyone batting an eyelid. A fully electric luxury car, after all, fits the brief rather neatly.

Or it could simply be this: Big Mercedes demands Big Mercedes V12. Realistically, it’s probably that.

Wait, so Mercedes has slotted a V12 in the nose of a Maybach, and you can’t even hear it?

You can hear it - just about. And when you actually need to get a move on (say you’re running late to your GenericMegaCorpShareholderConference, or you’ve got corporate assassins in pursuit and time is suddenly of the essence), the Maybach S680 gathers speed with genuinely startling force.

Mercedes says 0–62mph takes 4.5s, and during TopGear.com’s stint in a glossy red V12 test car, we never doubted it for a second. Again and again. And, yes, with a grin.

Must be amusing, sure.

A machine tipping the scales at well over two tonnes - 2,350kg, to be precise - and still capable of out-dragging a V8 BMW M3 is equal parts hilarious and faintly absurd. Select the wonderfully inappropriate ‘Sport’ mode (a Maybach with ‘Sport’, honestly) and the nose lifts ever so slightly before the whole thing thunders forward like a cross elephant that’s just been prodded. With your foot planted, it’ll run to 155mph (249km/h).

But a Maybach isn’t about harum-scarum speed, is it?

Not remotely. The V12’s real job is to deliver vast, unstrained shove: you’ve got 663lb ft (899Nm) from as low as 2,000rpm, channelled through a nine-speed automatic and four-wheel drive. There’s barely a pause between pressing the accelerator and that deep, satisfying surge - the sort that feels like it could go on forever.

Hang on, a second a go you mentioned MODES. In a Maybach!

Yes. You get three fixed settings (Sport, Comfort, Maybach), plus an Individual configuration so the driver (read: your chauffeur) can tailor the key systems (steering, air suspension and so on). All of them, naturally, prioritise serenity. But the Maybach mode goes further: it slackens the suspension again, softens throttle and steering responses a touch more, pulls away in second gear, and uses a different gearbox mapping to reduce shifts.

It’s a subtle tweak, yet you can feel it: the car’s reactions are deliberately blunted to help the driver glide rather than hustle. And from the best seat in the house - the rear - there’s a little extra compliance, making it easier to relax while you scheme your next GenericMegaCorpTakeover. Or whatever it is people do back there.

It even comes with rear-axle steering to trim the turning circle and make this limousine less of a handful in tight spaces. In context, it’s properly impressive.

That’s surely the point over a regular S-Class.

Exactly - and it rather redefines what ‘regular’ means for an S-Class. “A wheelbase that is 18cm longer than that of the long variant of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class is entirely to the benefit of the rear compartment,” says Merc. Which is a neat way of saying: this is longer than the longest normal S-Class we sell, and the extra length is entirely for the people not holding the steering wheel.

And what a rear compartment it is: lavish materials - diamond-pattern leather and beautifully finished wood - paired with a very deliberate show of high-end technology. The Maybach isn’t shy about its computing muscle; it practically displays it as a feature.

The screens use OLED tech (including the rear displays in our test car). There are heated and cooled rear cupholders, active ambient lighting, a Burmester 4D surround system, and even doors that will open and close via buttons.

The rear seats deserve their own paragraph. Both ‘executive’ chairs recline to 43.5 degrees, and if you fully recline one side, the front passenger seat automatically slides forward (provided it’s unoccupied), while a heel rest unfolds from below. It’s as close to lying flat as you’ll manage in an S680; “a continuous, comfortable reclining surface for a pleasant sleeping position”.

Of course, the car will also work through your aches with multiple massage programmes - including one aimed at your calves. And, inevitably, you can mark your latest GenericMegaCorpAcquisition with one of two silver-plated champagne flutes, pouring fizz kept chilled in the onboard fridge.

You can enjoy that in near silence, too. Mercedes adds extra absorbent foam in the rear wheel arches to improve NVH (on top of a normal S-Class’s internal foam), fits thicker laminated rear glass, and even offers (optional) quieter tyres. The real party trick, though, is a clever noise-cancelling system that uses the audio hardware to sense rough road inputs and play opposing sound waves “phase-shifted by 180 degrees” through the bass speakers.

The upshot: it is exceptionally, almost unnervingly quiet, so you can direct your chauffeur from the back in little more than a murmur.

On the UK’s crumbling, patchy surfaces, the car worked tirelessly to smother most of what the road threw at it, only letting through the very worst sections of tarmac. Even then it wasn’t so much a bounce, a jolt, or even a genuine annoyance - more a brief ‘what was that?’. Compared with a standard S-Class, the gap is obvious, and the Maybach justifies itself, regardless of how you feel about the styling.

Not entirely sold on those, if I’m honest.

Fair - it’s subjective - but you cannot mistake this for a ‘regular’ S-Class, and that’s the whole point. The towering grille, the wheels, and the available two-tone paint that takes a week to apply. It’s… lavish.

And it’s not as if Mercedes is struggling to find buyers. In China alone, it sold 12,000 Maybach S-Classes in 2019 (and more recently has been running at somewhere close to 600 cars a month). Since the marque’s relaunch in 2015, Mercedes has moved a hefty 60,000 Maybachs worldwide - with the biggest markets being China, Russia, South Korea, the USA and Germany.

At £201k, the S680 is priced above the W12 Bentley Flying Spur, yet below the Rolls-Royce Ghost in simple list-price terms. Meanwhile the V8 Maybach - the S580 - opens at £159,695, which… feels surprisingly persuasive, particularly if choosing the V12 mostly buys you a badge plus a little extra pace and punch.

But then again: if you were the head of GenericMegaCorp, could you really stomach ordering the V8 when the V12 exists? Precisely.