The 2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series is what happens when Mercedes decides that the real problem with excessive luxury is that it hasn’t yet been ironic enough.

Maybach has been the department responsible for building vehicles best understood from the back seat. They are long, quiet, upholstered like the lobby of a very expensive hotel, rolling boudoirs meant to be occupied by plutocrats reclining in the back while someone named Dieter pilots it through traffic like a discreet butler. These are cars for people who regard driving as a hobby practiced by others. The SL680 changes all that by offering a Maybach you’re supposed to drive. It’s like offering a diamond-encrusted hammer for the discerning carpenter.

Underneath the silk smoking jacket, the SL680 is basically the Mercedes-AMG SL63, a car originally engineered to frighten hedge fund managers and trees. It employs the same 577-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8, nine-speed automatic, and all-wheel drive, hardware that suggests track days, tire smoke and poor choices. But Maybach has gone through the trouble of sanding off the sharp edges and lowering the volume. The aggression has been dulled, the edges rounded. The suspension has been softened, the noise dialed down, and the whole experience recalibrated.

The result is an SL that’s less sports car and more mobile country club. The suspension no longer challenges your spine to a duel. The exhaust no longer announces your arrival like a minor coup d’état. Instead, the SL680 glides along, fast but relaxed, capable but uninterested in proving anything. It’s a grand tourer that has seen things and would rather discuss wine.

And of course, it looks different. Maybachs must look different. So, the 2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series wears exclusive two-tone paint, in this case Garnet Red Metallic and a black hood festooned with Mercedes-Maybach logos, a $6,500 option, because nothing says refinement like ensuring the peasants can identify your car from three zip codes away. This visual distinction is critical, so that no one mistakes this for a merely expensive Mercedes instead of a seriously expensive one. This matters to the sort of buyer who notices these things instantly and explains them at length to dinner companions. Yet it’s visually noisy in a way that Mercedes vehicles rarely are. It’s pure fashionista, and almost chav. Could such stylistic excesses have led to the recent dismissal of Mercedes-Benz Chief Design Officer Gorden Wagener? Discuss among yourselves.

Nevertheless, the SL680’s cabin is seriously posh in the traditional sense, as in no visible plastic. You instinctively lower your voice when you sit down, as the interior is a well-funded argument against minimalism. It’s a place where every surface has been softened, polished or padded into submission. Lined in white nappa leather and white carpeting, it doesn’t merely feel luxurious; it radiates the calm, smug certainty of an object that knows exactly how much it cost and finds the number entirely reasonable.

The SL680’s reconfigurable 12.3-inch digital instrument display and 11.9-inch touchscreen run by MBUX software do everything you could want provided you remember where Mercedes hid the function you’re looking for. Thankfully, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, because Mercedes understands what General Motors doesn’t: that owners still want their phones to do the heavy lifting.

The seats are heated, cooled and equipped with a massage function that kneads your back gently enough to remind you that you’re rich. They feature Mercedes’ Airscarf system, which blows warm air on your neck during cold-weather top-down driving, perfect for those who refuse to admit that convertibles have seasons. There are no rear seats, but there is storage space for stashing things. And you’ll need it. the trunk is laughably small: 7.5 cubic feet with the top down. This is not a car for people who pack. It’s a car for people who arrive and have someone else bring the rest later.

In short, the 2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680 is magnificent, indulgent and faintly impractical. It’s a grand touring car for those who want sports car performance, supreme comfort, and the quiet confidence of knowing they’ve paid vastly more than necessary and don’t need to carry anything except their self-esteem.

2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series

Base price: $224,900

Engine: 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8

Horsepower/Torque: 577/590 pound-feet

EPA rating (combined city/highway): 16 mpg

Fuel required: Premium

Length/Width/Height: 185/75/54 inches

Ground clearance: 4.6 inches

Payload: Not rated

Cargo capacity: 7.5 cubic feet

Towing capacity: Not rated

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