Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet – an S 65 Cabriolet with £70k of Maybach GAUD

We had a tease for the Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet last week, and now it arrives in LA as a limited run S65 Cabriolet with a hefty price tag – £260,000.

Mercedes spent a very long time – and a great deal of money – trying to convince well-heeled car buyers that a Maybach was better than a Rolls Royce.

That adventure was an expensive failure, so instead of delivering a standalone Maybach Mercedes decided to bolt a Maybach badge on the back of the S Class and charge more money. And that’s exactly what this Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet is.

Teased earlier this week by Mercedes, we reckoned this would be a limited run take (it is – 300 units) on the S 65 Cabriolet costing around £250k. Which it is, although the Euro price is the equivalent of £260k – a £70k premium on the already ridiculously priced S 65 Cab, and more than twice as much as the S 63 Cabriolet.

For a price that will buy you a Rolls Royce Dawn (yes, Mercedes still think they can compete against RR with a Maybach badge) Mercedes has gilded the S 65 lily with turbine-look alloys, a tweaked front bumper, extra chrome and some Maybach badges.

The interior comes in for a titivate too, with a luxury yacht theme with ‘waterfall’ leather trim, diamond quilting, bespoke trim bits, special veneers, numbered plaque and a Maybach badge on the steering wheel. There are also lots of silly price, silly options too.

Under the bonnet lurks the same 6.0 litre V12 as the Mercedes S 65, delivering 621bhp and a 0-63mph of 4.1 seconds.

Are there 300 people in the world with deep pockets daft enough to buy the Maybach S 650 Cabriolet instead of the Rolls Royce Dawn? We’d be surprised. Although it could be 300 cars over the next decade?