Mercedes-Benz S550 4Matic Coupe THE BEST OR . . . NEVER MIND. IT’S THE BEST.

NO LONGER SHOULD YOU FEAR YOUR Bentley driving golf-club buddies confusing your six-figure Mercedes for a $30,000 front driver. Keen to reaffirm the connection between its flagship grand-touring two-door and the S-class sedan that sired that car, Mercedes has canned the coupe’s old badge. The CL is now known as the S-class coupe.

The V-12 S65 AMG will follow, and potentially a V-6 hybrid S400 if Mercedes can be persuaded there’s a market, but from launch, the range consists of S550 and S63 AMG. For around $120,000, the S550 gets a 449-hp, twin-turbo, 4.7-liter V-8 that hauls the car’s 4607-pound arse to 60 mph in an estimated 4.5 seconds. The sweeter-steering S63 is a claimed 44 pounds lighter 150 pounds lighter than last year’s CL63. It also benefits from 577 hp, with the result that it’ll dip into the threes on the run to 60 mph.

Even allowing for the fact that the coupes are 8.6 inches shorter between the axles than the long-wheelbase S-class sedan, that’s impresSive. And while both are too heavy and isolate you too much from the road to be sports-car material, they acquit themselves well in the curves, displaying strong grip and good roll resistance, the gentle slip into understeer disguised by a stability control system that’s more discreet than a Capitol Hill escort.

Like the sedan, the S coupe comes with a barrage of safety systems, from a drowsiness detector to a head-up display. But because North American coupes will all be sold with Mercedes’s 4Matic all wheel drive system, we’ll miss out on the quirky, rear-drive-only curve-tilting feature offered in Europe. It’s an evolution of the Active Body Control Mercedes launched in 1999, only this time, the hydraulics don’t merely eradicate roll, but actively lean the car into a curve, like a motorcycle. It’s interesting, but it’s designed as a comfort feature and can’t react fast enough to cope with really quick driving. Long story short: We’re not actually missing anything.

Mercedes’s Magic Body Control, which uses cameras to read the road ahead and adjust the suspension to suit, is off the menu for the same reason. Fortunately, the standard air suspension gives a smooth ride, and the interior is so silent at freeway speeds, Mercedes’s claim that this is the quietest car it’s ever built seems entirely believ-able. Combine that with a cabin easily a match for anything from Bentley and exterior styling slicker than anything else Mercedes-Benz sells, and you’ve got the most desirable GT car on the planet. We can’t wait to get enough pennies in the piggy bank to buy one of these.

PRICE  $120,000 (est) 
POWERTRAIN 
4.7-liter V-8, 449
hp, 516 lb-ft; AWD,
7-speed automatic
WEIGHT   4607 lb
0–60 MPH 4.5 sec   (est)
TOP SPEED 155 mph 
ON SALE Fall