Mercedes-Maybach S650 Cabriolet

Scope of this guide

This guide is scoped to the Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet, the limited two-door, four-seat open car that Mercedes-Benz showed at the Los Angeles show in November 2016 and put on sale in the spring of 2017, with the 6.0L twin-turbo V12 petrol engine, 621 bhp, rear-wheel drive and a run capped at 300 cars. It is not a guide to the ordinary Mercedes-Benz S 560 Cabriolet, to the Mercedes-AMG S 63 Cabriolet, to the AMG S 65 Cabriolet that shares its engine, or to the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class saloons. Where those cars differ we say so, because an advert that says only "Maybach S-Class" can describe any of them.

We have not driven this model for this article. Everything here comes from three cited sources: the auto motor und sport report of 16 November 2016 on the launch, PistonHeads' report of the same day from the Los Angeles show, and the government recall checker page. We also read the AUTOHAUS report of 16 November 2016, an AutoGuide report of 15 November 2016, a Car Enthusiast report of 16 November 2016, a conceptcarz page that reproduces the Mercedes-Benz press text, and the km77 data page. We flag every point that rests on them. Where sources disagree we say so rather than pick a winner quietly. Prices are history, not valuations.

The figures at a glance

• Engine: 6.0L twin-turbo V12 petrol, the twelve-cylinder biturbo engine of the AMG S 65, mounted at the front. Sources print only "6.0-litre". We store 5980 cc, which is the figure for that engine family, and we did not find it printed in the sources we read.
• Power: 621 bhp, which is 630 PS or 463 kW. Mercedes and most of the press print 630 PS (often written 630 hp), and AUTOHAUS prints 463 kW / 630 PS. Our own conversion: 630 PS x 0.98632 is about 621 bhp, and 463 kW x 1.34102 is about 621 bhp. AutoGuide prints 621 horses directly. One US-spec table we saw in search results gave 612 hp, which we could not trace to a primary source and do not use.
• Torque: 1000 Nm, printed by auto motor und sport and AUTOHAUS. AutoGuide gives 738 lb ft, which agrees (1000 Nm is about 737.6 lb ft).
• 0-100 km/h: 4.1 seconds, as auto motor und sport prints for 0-100 km/h. Press reports of the English figure give 0-62 mph in 4.1 seconds as well, but we saw those only in search summaries. Our catalogue used to hold 4.24 seconds, and we found no source for that figure.
• Top speed: 250 km/h, electronically limited. auto motor und sport and AUTOHAUS print 250 km/h, and English reports give 155 mph, which is the same limit.
• Drive: rear-wheel drive through the seven-speed automatic gearbox (7G-TRONIC), as PistonHeads and km77 describe.
• Size: km77 gives a length of 5.03 m and a boot of 350 litres. It said Mercedes had not yet released a weight, and we did not find one.

What the car actually is

Strip away the badge and the Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet is an S-Class Cabriolet, the open four-seater that Mercedes launched in 2016, with the AMG S 65 V12, dressed up as the first open Maybach. Car Enthusiast calls it essentially an AMG S 65 with extra trim. That is useful if you are thinking about parts, servicing and mechanical history, because the engine, gearbox and platform are not exclusive to this car. It also means the Maybach part of the price is the finish, the equipment and the scarcity, not a different engine.

PistonHeads described it as a 630hp version of the 6.0-litre twin-turbo V12 with the familiar seven-speed automatic, sending power to the rear wheels. The conceptcarz page, which carries the Mercedes-Benz press text, says it is an open-top four-seater with a coupe-like soft top. AUTOHAUS lists the equipment that makes it a Maybach: the options of the S-Class Cabriolet fitted as standard, including a neck-warming heater and Swarovski headlights, 20 inch forged wheels, matching travel bags, an embroidered car cover and a Maybach logo projected onto the road when the doors open.

What the limit of 300 means

Every source we read says 300 cars. PistonHeads says just 300 will be built, AUTOHAUS and AutoGuide say 300 units, and the Mercedes-Benz text on conceptcarz says limited to 300 examples. AutoGuide adds that 75 of them were headed for the United States. The welcome pack included a numbered key ring reading "1 of 300", and Car Enthusiast says buyers also received certificates signed by the Mercedes-Benz chairman of the time, Dr Zetsche. We have not seen the actual documents.

We do not know whether the 300 sold out, and we do not know whether the run was later extended. A forum thread we read held only speculation that all 300 were sold, and Car Enthusiast predicted that Maybach should not have any trouble selling them. We found no report of additional units, and we found no statement that production ended. Our catalogue keeps 300 as the stated run, and we advise any buyer to ask Mercedes-Benz or an authorised dealer to confirm which number the car carries and that it is a genuine S 650 Cabriolet rather than an S 65 Cabriolet with Maybach styling parts.

Years, launch and what we changed

The brief we worked from suggested a 2017 reveal and 2018 sales. The sources say otherwise. The car was shown at the Los Angeles show in mid-November 2016 and announced for sale in the spring of 2017, with AutoGuide and others saying the second quarter. km77 gives a sales period of November 2016 to October 2017, which we read as the ordering window and not as a production run. We keep 2017 as the start year because that is when cars reached customers, and we leave the end year empty because no source we read states when the last car was built.

The catalogue also lacked a body style. We record it as a 2-door cabriolet with four seats, which AutoGuide (up to four) and the Mercedes-Benz press text (four-seater) both support.

Price history

The announced price was 300,000 euros before taxes, which AUTOHAUS and auto motor und sport both print. auto motor und sport also says Mercedes asked 357,000 euros in Germany. English-language reports converted the euro figure to about 260,000 pounds. AutoGuide's first report said the US price was not yet announced, and later US reports we saw only as search snippets gave 427,000 dollars and 320,000 dollars, which conflict. None of these is a current value, and we found no used price data.

Running costs, parts and servicing

We found no published servicing schedule, parts price list or reliability data for this car, and we will not invent them. km77 prints 12.0 l/100 km as an average consumption figure, which we regard as a catalogue number from the launch and not a real-world figure for a 6.0 litre twin-turbo V12. Because the drivetrain is shared with the AMG S 65, a specialist who works on that car should be able to say more than we can. Ask for the full dealer service history, the fault history for the roof, the air suspension and the electronics, and the results of any engine-management software updates.

What to check before buying

• Confirm the car is a genuine S 650 Cabriolet from the 300-car run. Ask for the build documents, the numbered certificate and the "1 of 300" key ring, and have a Mercedes-Benz dealer confirm the identity from the chassis number.
• Check that the specification matches the standard list: 20 inch forged wheels, the Swarovski headlights, the neck heater, the luggage set and the car cover. A car missing these may have been altered.
• Operate the soft top several times, with the car cold and warm, and look for water entry, noise and slow or uneven movement.
• Look for kerb damage on the wheels, which are large and expensive, and for stone chips on the long bonnet.
• Ask for evidence of engine, gearbox and brake servicing, and what the car has been stored in. A low-mileage car that has stood unused for years still needs its fluids, tyres and seals checked.
• Confirm the maintenance and warranty position with the seller, because we found nothing on this in our sources.
• Run the registration through the recall check described below.

Recalls and the government check

We did not run the government recall checker for any registration, because we are not looking at a specific car. We did read the page text, which says that you can use the car registration number through the MOT service to see safety recalls, and that you need to know the manufacturer, model and year if you do not have the registration. It also says that the manufacturer will tell you about recalls for any reason other than safety. We found no recall notice for the S 650 Cabriolet in any source, and absence from our sources is not a clean bill of health. English-language reports gave a sterling price, but we did not confirm how many cars were delivered in the UK, so a car imported from another market may not appear on the checker. Also check the recall history of the S-Class Cabriolet family it is built on, because some of its parts are shared.

About the photograph

The picture at the top of this page shows a Maybach S 650 Cabriolet in blue with a dark blue soft top, photographed in June 2023 and published on Wikimedia Commons under a free licence. We cropped it to a wide frame and blurred two number plates. It is a photograph of a single car, so do not treat its colour or trim as the standard specification.

Verdict

The Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet in this guide is 621 bhp (630 PS), 1000 Nm, 4.1 seconds to 100 km/h and an electronically limited 250 km/h, rear-wheel drive, in a stated run of 300 cars. It is a very exclusive open four-seater built on the S-Class Cabriolet and the AMG S 65 engine, and its value to a buyer lies in the numbered identity and the standard equipment more than in any performance gap over the AMG car. If you are shopping for one, confirm the number and the specification, ask for a full dealer history and a specialist inspection, and treat every published figure as a launch claim with the caveats above. We have not driven it, so use the sources and a proper inspection to decide.