Autocar’s super-luxury chart takes in the best of the very best on four wheels: only the ultra-rare, ultra-expensive and ultra-luxurious get in.
Most of the contenders here are limousine saloons large enough to make the average three-bedroom semi-detached house look small, but one or two of the most demure and desirable SUVs in the world make the cut also.
If you want the very last word in opulence, sophistication, sense of occasion and conferred status from your choice of car, this is the niche you’ll be shopping in. There isn’t a car here that you can buy for less than a six-figure outlay, and one or two might even cost you seven figures. For regular super-luxury class clientele, after all, to be denied the opportunity to double the cost of your car in making it absolutely your own would be the ultimate turn-off.
Rolls-Royce Ghost
The Ghost was a line in the sand for Rolls-Royce when it appeared in 2009: the beginning of a transformation that took the company's annual production volume from hundreds of to several thousand cars per year.
Now in its second-generation, the Phantom's understudy has evolved substantially. Where the Ghost's mechanical underpinnings were once adapted from those of the BMW 7 Series, it now shares the same 'Architecture of Luxury' platform as the Cullinan and Phantom. There are also innovations such as Rolls-Royce's mass dampers for the front suspension, and an active anti-roll bar for the rear axle, both of which help bring ride-quality closer than ever to that of the Phantom.
However, while the Phantom is very much a car in which to be driven, the Ghost was intended as a car for the well-heeled driver, and its dynamic character reflects that. Slighter tauter-riding and more agile than the Phantom (partly by virtue of its more compact proportions), it lends itself more readily to the cut-and-thrust of daily motoring on traffic-clogged UK roads than its bigger brother.
And yet in terms of interior space, luxury ambience and sheer material quality, the car sits only the smallest of rungs below its bigger brother, adopting as it does Rolls-Royce new 'post-opulence' design approach both inside and out. It's a Neoclassical fortress on wheels, but a useable one.
Bentley Flying Spur
Bentley’s four-door ‘Continental’-series limousine started off its modern life as the Continental Flying Spur in 2006, only dropping the nomenclative prefix that links it with Crewe’s current two-door GT with its biggest model overhaul yet in 2014.
But the Flying Spur is now in its third generation – something that's not difficult to detect from the prouder, more muscular design, which borrows heavily from the most recent, attractive Continental GT coupe. Crewe's 'junior' saloon also benefits dramatically from a new platform, which was co-developed with Porsche and uses four-wheel steering and active anti-roll bars. It also better insulates the fantastically opulent cabin from the road, and provides the basis for genuinely good driving dynamics. Grip, balance and steering are all noticeable improved.
Of course, there is the same calling-card 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12, which makes 626bhp plus bottomless torque and fires the car to 62mph in comfortably less than four seconds and on to a top speed of more than 200mph. Versions of the Spur equipped with Bentley's lighter, more freely revving V8 and a six-cylinder Flying Sur hybrid powertrain are also offered.
Never before has the Spur felt so complete, then, and so able to execute the role of supersonic, luxury drivers' car. And much of that is still down to the cabin. Even though it’s Bentley’s entry-level limousine, the Flying Spur offers an interior of genuinely luxurious ambience and feel, kitted out as it is with soft, beautifully stitched leathers, authentic, natural veneers, and eye-catching and tactile metal brightwork.
Mercedes-Maybach S-Class
The richest and most special car in what might be the most universally respected and admired limousine range in the world, the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class is the modern standard-bearer for Daimler’s Maybach super-luxury brand.
To judge by appearances, you’d say it was at least as much S-Class as Maybach, and that’s the result of Daimler’s strategic decision, taken a few years ago, to broaden the reach of the Maybach marque by creating ‘halo’ Maybach models across some of its more normal Mercedes passenger car ranges. The ultra-rare, Simon Cowell-spec, Maybach-only 57 and 62 limousines were at the same time consigned to history.
And so the fact that this car is ‘only’ an S-Class may be at once its biggest strength and its key vulnerability. Compared to a Rolls-Royce or Bentley, an S-Class might not cut a lot of mustard for drool-worthy kerbside appeal; but being an S-Class also makes this car the recipient of the all those advanced active suspension and driver assistance technologies and helps to make it so brilliantly refined, rich and cosseting.
The flagship S650 model's 603bhp twin-turbocharged petrol V12 (though the UK will also get the 496bhp 4.0-litre V8 S580) is barely audible, and its dedication to comfort and good manners is outstanding. At 18cm longer than even the long-wheelbase version of the standard S-Class, you can guarantee that even the longest-legged passengers will have space aplenty.
BMW iX
All-electric super-luxury cars, with the performance, refinement and versatility to really command the road, have been slow to emerge - but the BMW iX is the closest thing we've seen to one so far. The exterior design of this full-size SUV is divisive, and to some it may not count as desirable at all. But to those who really think about the EV they want to own, who care about how sustainable its various ingredients and production processes are, and who look a little deeper to find the desirability of a high-end car, the iX should stand out for all sorts of reasons.
This car has environmentally friendly olive-tanned leather, lightweight electrically excited motors which have no need of heavy magnets, and the metals for its drive battery are sourced responsibly from North Africa and Australia. It's available in several versions, the middle-sitting iX xDrive50 version of which has more than 500-horsepower, four-wheel drive, and advertised range in excess of 300 miles. And then there's the headline 'M60' version with its 600 electric horses to call on.
Where the iX really impresses on the road is with its first-class ride isolation and drivability, which put it into this class on equal terms with the other cars here, despite being considerably cheaper than many. If you're ready to electrify the status symbol on your gravel drive, this is - right now - the way to do it.
Mercedes' top-level EQS electric limousine is already on sale in the UK, from a cool £155k, but we're reserving judgement on where it belongs in this chart until we've driven it on UK roads - hopefully by summer 2022. It could rise pretty high, though, with 751bhp on tap and a design like a four-wheeled space capsule. Watch this space.
Original Content: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/best-cars/top-10-best-super-luxury-c…
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