Mercedes-Benz S-Class drops its lid

There are times a Mercedes-Benz S-Class may be described as handling like a yacht – now the XXL limousine will be as breezy as one.

Benz has released this sketch of what it officially calls the S-Class Cabriolet ahead of the real thing's public debut at the Frankfurt motor show in September.

The sketch doesn’t appear to in any way attempt to disguise the size of the S-Class Cabriolet. There appears to be plenty of distance left on the top surface of the S-Class Coupe-shared tail-gate to indicate a big boot and lots of rear legroom.

The Cab also takes Coupe cues at the rear including slimline, horizontal tail-lights that sit beneath a chrome strip stretching along the rear tail-gate.

Expect the same 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 range-opener as the hard-top too, leading to a 5.5-litre TT V8 and possibly even the 6.0-litre TT V12 (Benz has said it before: some buyers just demand a V12).

In the S-Class Coupe they respectively take 4.6 seconds, 4.2sec and 4.1sec to dispatch with 100km/h.

Expect the S-Class Cabriolet to be only marginally slower. It will use a power retractable steel roof rather than the canvas variety, which will add even more heft to the 1.95-2.1 tonne kerb weights of the Coupe.

But torque talks – specifically 700Nm for the entry car, 900Nm for the middle tier and 1000Nm for the V12 – so it’s unlikely a buyer will be anything but (wind) swept away with the performance.

It’s clearly target Bentley Continental GTC for the S-Class Cabriolet. Prices of $350,000 to $500K-plus may just place it out of reach of BMW 6 Series Convertible buyers, but it doesn’t fill the alfresco-with-acreage brief quite as well as this S likely will.

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