A new flagship is always cause for attention, but none is likely to endure the scrutiny the refreshed 2027 Mercedes-Benz S-Class will.
Stopgap Flagship
Historically, the S-Class is Mercedes’ tech leader. You look at its list of comfort, convenience, and safety features to find out what will be available five to ten years from now on a car the average person can afford. Right now, though, Mercedes is in the middle of a(nother) big shift in its products and the S-Class development cycle is out of sync.
Mercedes is walking back its parallel gas/EV product strategy that saw the company build unique EV counterparts to most of its existing gas-powered lineup, all with EQ names. Things like the EQS sedan, which was supposed to be the S-Class of EVs. All that is over and there’s just one Mercedes in each segment now, with both gas and electric powertrains available. This has already happened for the smaller, more affordable CLA-, GLB-, and GLC-Class vehicles, but the S-Class and its EQS counterpart are on a different timeline, so they remain separate.
This means that while the company shows off all-new vehicles built on new platforms with new styling, the S-Class must soldier on with a midcycle refresh. As public interest in big luxury sedans has waned over the last decade, this becomes the most consequential refresh in S-Class history.
It Doesn’t Really Look New
Mercedes-Benz claims the 2027 S-Class is more than 50 percent new by parts content, with some 2,700 parts updated or replaced. It’s a shame, then, all you can see from the outside are a new nose, tail, wheels, and some cameras.
Up front, the S-Class follows the latest Mercedes trend of illuminating everything and adding three-pointed stars wherever possible. The new grille is 20 percent larger and features a field of chrome stars broken up by four vertical chrome bars, though you can black-out all the chrome with the Night Package. The perimeter of the grille is now illuminated, and if that’s not ostentatious enough, the hood ornament can also be illuminated. Think of it like an Oreo, with a chrome front and back with a white light sandwiched between.
The grille itself is surrounded on three sides by an unfortunate piece of piano black trim regardless of paint color. It’s an idea carried over from the E-Class and meant to make the grille and headlights look like a big, single piece. It works better on the less-expensive car where the black trim surrounds the entire grille, but on the S-Class the top strip is body color so the black trim just looks odd. It’s the rare case in which painting the car black instead of a more interesting color is advisable because it hides that detail. Too bad, since Mercedes is offering more than 150 exterior combinations and more than 400 interior combinations, and that’s before you go down the Manufaktur in-house customization rabbit hole.
Like other models, the headlights and taillights now have star-shaped DRLs, in this case two each to signify it’s an S-Class (lesser models get one light-up star). The blue lights in the headlight fixtures are to indicate when the car is operating in hands-free autonomous driving mode. Opponents of super-bright headlights will be disappointed to learn these new micro-LED jobs are 40 percent brighter with high beams capable of throwing light more than a third of a mile.
All the light-up stuff may strike some as gaudy, but it’s a growing trend. Beyond that, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius says it makes the car more visible at night for pedestrians, which he says makes it safer.
At the corners, Mercedes is introducing several new wheel designs ranging from 19 to 21 inches in diameter. By far the most interesting is the new high-pressure cast 20-inch wheel that features 50 spokes in an intricate lace design. Rear steering remains standard turning 4.5 degrees or up to 10 degrees if you forego the 21-inch wheel options. That’ll help a lot in tight parking lots because the U.S. will continue to get the long wheelbase standard with no short wheelbase option.
Otherwise, the only noteworthy exterior update is planted just behind the front wheels. Mercedes has added additional exterior cameras as part of its 27-sensor tech suite that will eventually enable hands-free, eyes-off-the-road autonomous driving.
Familiar Interior
You’ll have to look equally hard for interior updates. The so-called Superscreen is now standard, which means the 12.3-inch passenger screen is also now in every S-Class. Americans don’t much care for it, but according to Källenius, it’s an absolute must-have in China and other Asian markets. It shares a single glass panel with the 14.4-inch infotainment screen, but the 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster is its own freestanding unit. The all-in-one Hyperscreen from the EQS is not offered. Anyone who wanders past a new CLA in the showroom may also be disappointed, if they’re technophiles, to see it has bigger and better screens than the S-Class at barely more than a third the price.
At the fringes of the displays are new air vents which you can aim both by grabbing and moving them or with the screen. Hidden actuators can adjust the vents automatically to whatever preset the current driver has saved in their profile (face, torso, away from the body), or you just grab them and point them and the system will remember that position in the Individual settings.
Speaking of personal comfort, the S-Class now offers heated front seatbelts to go along with the heated armrests, seats, and steering wheel it already offered. Mer