Once again, the question comes up: Is this just possibly the finest automobile built?

BY FRANK MARKUS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY

Germans use their luxury sedans differently than do Americans. In that smaller but more crowded country, the suits often use high-luxury cars for inter-city business travel along smooth, efficient high-speed autobahns. In the U.S., where cities are farther apart and connected by crumbling highways choked by lumbering trucks and left-lane bandits, most executive business travel is by air. Yankee plutocrat owners of big Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes-Benzes, who just use them to tool around among home, office, club, and airport, don't know what they're missing.

To shake down the new Mercedes-Benz S-class -- which is going on sale as you read this, priced at $72,353 with the 4.3-liter V-8 and $82,052 with the 5.0-liter V-8 -- we decided to drive it to lunch. To lunch in Chicago.

For this lunch, yer humble pilot spent a late night cramming for the 500-mile round-trip drive with the car's three owner's manuals -- one for the car, one for the COMAND system (stereo, navigation, and phone), and yet another for the phone's voice-activation feature -- so as not to leave any of the myriad features and gizmos unevaluated. Mercedes-Benz still expects its owners to study owner's manuals, but the new S-class's controls, marked mostly with English abbreviations, are more easily mastered than those in its predecessor.

We set off from Ann Arbor at 8:45 a.m. By the first stoplight, we were complaining about the peculiar placement of the underseat storage bins that jut out and rub the front occupants' calves when seated normally.

The first hour was spent tiptoeing through pea-soup fog. It gave us a chance to notice the incredibly smooth and settled ride the AIRmatic air-spring and adaptive-damping suspension provides over broken and poorly patched Michigan freeways. We can't remember a creamier-riding car, including the Rolls-Royce we drove back from New York last October. An innovation we discovered: dual-mode vanity mirrors with zoom for zit examination.

By the time we'd reached Jackson, 30 miles away, the fog had lifted, and we set about tailoring the Bose Beta II sound system to our tastes. We ordered random play from the trunk-mounted six-disc changer and adjusted the digital signal processor to our favorite of six preset sound environments. The stereo monitors ambient noise levels through the hands-free telephone microphone and tailors volume and tone to compensate. The sound quality is excellent if not quite as brilliant and dynamic as we remember in the best Lexus.

That settled, my co-pilot tapped into the navigation system the street-intersection coordinates for our Chicago rendezvous. Having perused the owner's manual, we found programming to be easy and the maps quite detailed. Enter a destination, and an estimated arrival time is displayed and route instructions are provided audibly and pictographically on the message center in the semicircular speedometer.

On a deserted stretch of I-94, we dropped the hammer, and within a handful of heartbeats we were up against the 127-mph speed governor. A slight headwind that was unnoticeable at 80 mph moved the car around just a bit at this clip -- nothing scary, mind you, but a subtle reminder that not even the mighty S500 is impervious to the elements.

Passing through industrial-chic Gary, Indiana, we were pleased that the various cabin air-filtering systems spared our olfactory senses any unappetizing odors. We called our lunch companions as we neared the Loop, testing out the voice-recognition system, which only operates the optional hands-free telephone. A button activates the system and mutes the stereo somewhat, after which one of the two or so dozen telephone commands can be spoken in a normal conversational tone and cadence. The system recognized all of the drawls and brogues we threw at it, but it was occasionally tripped up by ambient noise.

As the nav system directed us off the Dan Ryan Expressway into one of Chicago's many "urban renewal" projects, we were comforted by the one-touch SOS button on the overhead console. Pressing it activates the standard Tele Aid system, which uses a completely separate cellular phone system and any of three antennae (in case one is damaged in an accident) to summon police or an ambulance, if needed. Such a summons is automatic if an airbag is deployed.

We arrived at 11:15 local time, free of saddle sores and feeling refreshed. The seats are perfectly contoured and padded -- not too firm, not too mushy -- for long-distance travel. Following a delightful two-hour lunch at the New Rosebud Cafe on West Taylor in Chicago's Little Italy 'hood, we happily climbed back aboard for the jaunt home.

Following a fuel stop in western Michigan (we averaged 21 mpg for the trip), your humble scribe took to the back seat for a 100-mile stint and found it as comfortable as the fronts, providing ample space and terrific visibility (EPA volumes drop slightly with a 3.0-inch loss of shoulder room, but the S500 is still huge for four riders). A feature that even Chevys should crib -- coat hooks on the B-pillar to hang jackets by the collar so they don't block visibility.

Just before Chelsea, we set the active dampers to sport mode and detoured north to assess the S500's handling in the undulating lake country near our 10Best driving loop. Here again the new Benz sets a benchmark. The AIRmatic springs maintain a very even keel in brisk running. Quick left-right transitions are managed with grace. The Eagle LS tires cling to the tarmac in stoic silence right up to their 0.75-g limit. (Those Eagles transmit a bit of road and tire noise while cruising in an otherwise whisper-quiet interior, though.) We felt absolutely no head toss over stretches where the pavement dipped near the shoulder. Even the carnival-ride whoop-de-dos failed to upset this unflappable chassis. The new rack-and-pinion steering feels lighter and more accurate than the old recirculating-ball setup, but it provides little feedback as cornering loads mount.

A BMW 7-series with the Sport suspension may outmaneuver the S500, but at a considerable penalty to ride. The Benz remained supple and compliant even with the shocks forced to their firm setting.

Immense vented (and cross-drilled front) disc brakes provide smooth, strong stopping power, with little noticeable fade (thanks in part to brake-cooling ducts that run from grilles in the front fascia). Stops from 70 mph occur in a sports-sedan-like 182 feet. Blasting out of the curve, the big V-8 makes delightful music as it surges toward the 6000-rpm redline, delivering performance that is on par with a BMW V-12. Zero to 60 takes just 6.1 seconds, but perhaps more pertinent is the 50-to-70-mph passing time of 4.1 seconds. The Bimmer does those tricks in 6.3 and 4.3 seconds, and our last 4543-pound S500 needed 6.6 and 4.1 seconds. Icing on the cake -- the price and the fuel economy say "V-8."

As we ambled back to the office that evening, we wondered aloud, "Is this the world's finest car?" Well, it's not perfect -- the instrument lighting doesn't dim sufficiently at night, the cup holders are too small, and executives we know want more than one 12-volt outlet in the front-seat area. But until a rigorous Car and Driver comparo answers the question definitively, the S500 strikes us as the best luxury car that smart money can justifiably buy. And in the meantime, lunch in Toronto anybody?

THE VERDICT

Highs: Cloud-nine ride, yet fleet of foot; V-12 performance with V-8 economy and pricing; undisputed gizmology leadership.

Lows: Instruments too bright at night, more road noise than in a Lexus, calf-poking underseat storage compartments.

The Verdict: The S500 reestablishes the outer limit of sensible, value-for-money automotive perfection.

COUNTERPOINT

Amazing. Agile. Astounding. Beautiful. Beguiling. Brilliant. Cool. Delightful. Dignified. Elegant. Excellent. Exciting. Extraordinary. Fabulous. Fantastic. Flawless. Feline. Fleet. Glittering. Graceful. Grand. Imperial. Ingenious. Inspired. Laudable. Lordly. Magical. Magnificent. Majestic. Nonpareil. Passionate. Patrician. Peerless. Perfect. Poised. Polished. Powerful. Precise. Preeminent. Princely. Refined. Regal. Scintillating. Seductive. Sensational. Sleek. Smooth. Sophisticated. State of the art. Stellar. Stimulating. Stupendous. Swell. Sublime. Superb. Thoughtful. Thoroughbred. Transcendental. Unrivaled. Wonderful. World-class. Get the idea? -- Tony Swan

I just spent the better part of two hours not driving our S500 test car, but simply fiddling with all its high-tech features in the parking lot. That's because there's no way to learn about them while actually driving the car. And after all that time idling, I feel a little guilty, because the engineers at Mercedes-Benz spent a great deal of time and effort equipping the car this way, but I can't imagine myself or the vast majority of its owners ever taking the time to fully learn and master all its capabilities. Luckily, the S500 comes with its own version of Cliffs Notes, so those less interested in details can get on with doing what I like most about this car: driving it. -- Andre Idzikowski

How has Mercedes taken a big, 4077-pound four-door sedan and somehow made it feel so light and nimble? The steering is so light, but take your hands off the wheel, and it never drifts left or right at any speed. The doors feel so much lighter than those of previous S-classes. Even the whooshing power delivery feels winged. This will do nothing to refute the notion that Germans have been favored with a gene pool that simply guarantees manufacturing perfection. Gizmos and doodads aside, it could easily be the best-designed, best-engineered car ever built by Mercedes-Benz. (But please -- put the click-clack noise back in the turn signals.) -- Steve Spence

Technical Highlights

The introduction of an S-class always heralds a new era in automotive technology. On the '00 S, even the hardware connecting the technology is noteworthy: 40 electronic controllers communicate via three separate info highways paved of lightweight, high-speed fiber-optic cables.

Climate Control
The standard dual-zone system includes exterior sensors to detect and account for humidity and the position and intensity of the sun, and to sniff for hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide and activate air recirculation. As many as 10 computer-controlled fans are used for the dual zones (and there's an optional four-zone temperature control).

Seats
An "ergonomic" seating function allows occasional or first-time drivers and front passengers to set the fore-and-aft position of their seat and then touch a button marked "E," which prompts a computer to select the seat and seatbelt heights and the backrest, steering-wheel, and mirror positions based on statistical anthropometric data.

Optional front and rear seats include 10 fans (six in the cushion, four in the seatback) that, together, blow up to seven cubic feet of air per minute quietly through the seat surfaces. The fans work with the seat heaters to speed warming and with the rapid-cool-down feature (windows and sunroof opened from outside the car via remote). An orthopedic option includes seven inflatable chambers (three for lumbar, two near the shoulders, and two in the side bolsters). The center lumbar cushion can be set to a massage rhythm -- it inflates and deflates slowly and repeatedly.

Lighting
Turn signals are built into both side-view mirrors, using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and fiber optics to channel light around the side of the mirror so other drivers beside and behind the car see the signal. LEDs are used exclusively for brake lighting, too -- they illuminate 15 milliseconds sooner than incandescent bulbs, and they have a life expectancy of at least 10 years.

Navigation
The standard Benz navigation system has some remarkable new features: a directory of points of interest, including stores, convention centers, car rental offices, train stations, airports, ferry terminals, parking lots, gas stations, and, uh-huh, Mercedes-Benz dealers. The system also has the ability to enter stopover points; to detour around traffic jams; to avoid freeways, ferries, or toll roads; and to recalibrate itself to account for different-size or worn-down tires.

2000 MERCEDES-BENZ S500

Vehicle type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan

Price as tested: $83,769

Price and option breakdown: base S500 (includes $2607 luxury tax, $1000 gas-guzzler tax, $595 freight), $82,052; telephone and 6-disc CD changer, $1620; luxury tax on options, $97

Major standard accessories: power steering, windows, seats, locks, and sunroof; A/C; cruise control; tilting and telescoping steering wheel; rear defroster

Sound system: Mercedes-Benz/Bose Beta II AM/FM-stereo radio/cassette/CD changer, 10 speakers

ENGINE
Type..........V-8, aluminum block and heads
Bore x stroke..........3.82 x 3.31 in, 97.0 x 84.0mm
Displacement..........303 cu in, 4966cc
Compression ratio..........10.0:1
Engine-control system..........Bosch ME 2.0 with port fuel injection
Emissions controls..........3-way catalytic converter, feedback air-fuel-ratio control, EGR, air pump
Valve gear..........chain-driven single overhead cams, 3 valves per cylinder, hydraulic lifters
Power (SAE net)..........302 bhp @ 5600 rpm
Torque (SAE net)..........339 lb-ft @ 2700 rpm
Redline..........6000 rpm

DRIVETRAIN
Transmission..........5-speed automatic with lockup torque converter
Final-drive ratio..........2.82:1, electronic limited slip
Gear..........Ratio..........Mph/1000 rpm..........Max. test speed
I..........3.59..........7.6..........45 mph (6000 rpm)
II..........2.19..........12.4..........74 mph (6000 rpm)
III..........1.41..........19.2..........115 mph (6000 rpm)
IV..........1.00..........27.1..........127 mph (4700 rpm)
V..........0.83..........32.7..........127 mph (3900 rpm)

DIMENSIONS AND CAPACITIES
Wheelbase..........121.5 in
Track, F/R..........62.0/62.0 in
Length..........203.1 in
Width..........73.1 in
Height..........57.2 in
Frontal area..........24.6 sq ft
Ground clearance..........6.1 in
Curb weight..........4077 lb
Weight distribution, F/R..........49.8/50.2%
Fuel capacity..........23.2 gal
Oil capacity..........8.5 qt
Water capacity..........12.1 qt

CHASSIS/BODY
Type..........unit construction with 2 rubber-isolated subframes
Body material..........welded steel and aluminum stampings

INTERIOR
SAE volume, front seat..........53 cu ft
   rear seat..........52 cu ft
   luggage space..........15 cu ft
Front seats..........bucket
Seat adjustments..........fore and aft, seatback angle, front height, rear height, lumbar and thigh support
Restraint systems, front..........manual 3-point belts; driver and passenger front, side, and head airbags
   rear..........manual 3-point belts, side and head airbags
General comfort..........poor fair good EXCELLENT
Fore-and-aft support..........poor fair good EXCELLENT
Lateral support..........poor fair GOOD excellent

SUSPENSION
F:..........ind; 1 control arm, 1 lateral link, and 1 diagonal link; 2-position cockpit-adjustable, electronically controlled shock absorbers; air springs; anti-roll bar
R:..........ind; 2 diagonal links, 2 lateral links, and 1 toe-control link per side; 2-position cockpit-adjustable, electronically controlled shock absorbers; automatically leveling air springs; anti-roll bar

STEERING
Type..........rack-and-pinion, power-assisted
Turns lock-to-lock..........2.9
Turning circle curb-to-curb..........39.7 ft

BRAKES
F:..........13.0 x 1.3-in vented and cross-drilled disc
R:..........11.8 x 0.9-in vented disc
Power assist..........vacuum with anti-lock control and brake assist

WHEELS AND TIRES
Wheel size..........7.5 x 16 in
Wheel type..........cast aluminum
Tires..........Goodyear Eagle LS, 225/60HR-16
Test inflation pressures, F/R..........29/32 psi

C/D TEST RESULTS

ACCELERATION..........Seconds
Zero to 30 mph..........2.4
   40 mph..........3.4
   50 mph..........4.7
   60 mph..........6.1
   70 mph..........7.8
   80 mph..........10.0
   90 mph..........12.4
   100 mph..........15.2
   110 mph..........18.6
   120 mph..........23.1
Street start, 5-60 mph..........6.2
Top-gear acceleration, 30-50 mph..........3.3
   50-70 mph..........4.1
Standing 1/4-mile..........14.6 sec @ 98 mph
Top speed (governor limited)..........127 mph

BRAKING
70-0 mph @ impending lockup..........182 ft
Fade..........none LIGHT moderate heavy

HANDLING
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad..........0.75 g
Understeer..........minimal MODERATE excessive

FUEL ECONOMY
EPA city driving..........17 mpg
EPA highway driving..........23 mpg
C/D-observed fuel economy..........19 mpg

INTERIOR SOUND LEVEL
Idle..........45 dBA
Full-throttle acceleration..........73 dBA
70-mph cruising..........67 dBA
70-mph coasting..........67 dBA

AutoStick-style sport shifter does not provide manumatic gearshift control. Gear selected is merely the highest gear permitted; automatic downshifts can still occur.

Copyright 1998, Hachette Filipacchi New Media.