The Stuttgart flagship in its purest form — the Mercedes-Benz S 350 d, the car that wrote the book on modern luxury.

The W222 generation claimed the World Luxury Car title in 2014, and one glance inside tells you why: genuine leather, open-pore wood, aluminium trim and the legendary Magic Body Control air suspension that reads road imperfections with cameras before the tyres even meet them.

Under the long bonnet, a 3.0-litre V6 biturbo diesel delivers 258 hp and a substantial 620 Nm of torque, channelled through a 9G-Tronic automatic to reach 100 km/h in roughly 6.0 seconds — in near-total silence, with you settled deep into the rear seat.

This is not a car that announces itself. It simply arrives.