Just Another Boring Test Drive
Most automobile journalists, like myself, are content to drive a new but hardly sensational test car around their neighbourhoods for a week or two. A lucky few get to drive an exotic vehicle in exotic places. Like, for example, Edmunds.com's Steve Siler, who tested a 2006 Maybach 57S super-luxury sedan on the roads of the Costa del Sol in Spain.
I should be envious but I'm not, because my family and I regularly vacationed in Spain during the happy years that we lived in Europe. Well, a little envious, maybe, since my luxo sedan at that time was a rental Seat 700. Still, I found pleasure in reading about Steve's Maybach experiences and I suggest you will, too, with words like these: "We sit atop napa leather chairs that are massaging and ventilating our backsides. The speedometer needle hovers around 200 kilometers per hour with nary a sound to be heard from the outside world. The only audible noises are the muted hum of a 612-horsepower biturbo V12 and the occasional sigh of sheer sensory satisfaction slipping from our mouths."
He speaks of chassis refinements experienced on the privately owned Ascari road course nestled in the mountains north of Marbella. Of creature comforts that include a rear-seat champagne cooler, twin sterling silver flutes, four-zone climate control, twin rear television screens. Of performance delivering 0-to-62-mph sprints in 5 seconds and impressive 50-to-75-mph bursts, which Maybach says takes just 3.7 seconds. And of the competition. Not the similarly massive Rolls-Royce Phantom or the slick new bentley Continental Flying Spur but, according to Maybach, motor yachts and personal aircraft. Choices… choices…
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