| New Range Topper | Maybach Landaulet |
If you have a spare £680,000 and fancy letting the breeze ruffle your hair in the back of a Maybach, the new Landaulet is just the car for you. The
uber-luxury arm of Mercedes has announced it is to build the open-top after a positive reaction at the
Detroit motor show, where the car was shown as a concept.
The first lucky buyers get their Landaulets in the autumn and will be treated to a rear fabric roof section that folds behind the cabin. It stows under a tonneau, but does not sit flat to the bodywork. The side pillars remain fixed in place, while the chauffeur sits in isolation under a fixed roof section.
The Landaulet comes with larger rear headrests so expensive hair-dos will not be ruffled by the wind. There's also a wind deflector that rises up automatically behind the rear seats at speeds of more than 45mph.
Maybach says it has strengthened the side pillars of the Landaulet to cope with the roof being removed. The roof is electro-hydraulically operated at the touch of a button in the chauffeur's part of the cabin.
Power for the Landaulet comes from the same 612bhp twin-turbo 6.0-litre V12 as in the 'standard' 62 S and the open-top sits on 20-inch alloy wheels that can be colour-matched to the bodywork.
Alisdair Suttie - 25 Feb 2008