Recipe For Disaster Or Shear Brilliance? $1 Million Mercedes-Benz S-Class Pullman To Cost More Than Double The Rolls Phantom

Recipe For Disaster. This is going to be a huge failure just like Mercedes-Benz's first attempt to revive the Maybach name. Looks like some companies just don't learn.

Total disaster. The Maybachs were a disaster because they looked like what they were: a lazy effort. Splice in extra wheelbase to an S Class, put on a different grille, a bring back a name last seen during NAZI Germany's Third Reich. The Pullman is another LAZY effort. Splice in wheelbase and call it a day. Why would anyone spend Rolls prices much less a million dollars on a car that looks like it costs $100K?

The Pullman should have had NO STYLING CUES in common with lesser Mercedes models so as to justify it being a true competitor to Rolls Royce.

That's great news... for Rolls Royce.

The Maybach wasnt a success because Mercedes-Benz is not the sort of brand that was able to deal with having a brand above it. The S Class has always been the company's best-to-market car from a design and tech perspective so the company made it impossible for itself to create a differentiated vehicle with the Maybach. The whole idea was half baked from the beginning and it's surprising MB didnt foresee that issue before bringing the Maybachs to market.
The Pullman concept corrects for this problem and also has serious brand value rooted in the 1960s and 70s-- far more than the word 'Maybach' ever had. At this point in the model cycles the current S Class is a better car than any Rolls/Bentley, and and I'd wager the Pullman is a relative success.

Branding experts would predict this move as a failure unless it is branded separately under "Pullman", with ZERO references to it being an S-Class variant (like Lexus for Toyota).

After failing to sell a quarter million dollar car that looked too much like an S-Class, MB now wants you to pay a full million for a car that looks EXACTLY like the Merc your neighbors got for 10 cents on the dollar.

When do the Nobel prize winners get announced?

This should be "Pullman...bespoke luxury for discerning tastes." I'd go no logo...just P U L L M A N across the tail. The ghetto bling of the CLA that migrated to the S Class is laughable but to have the Pullman look like an inflated "10 cents on the dollar" stretched CLA is inexcusable. The new Lagonda is how to do it right.

Maybach might have been a big fail in terms of sales, but it sure did appeal to a lot of celebrities. You can see a lot of rich people proudly showing their Maybach.

How often do you see rich people showing their Cadillac, Lincoln, Lexus or Buick proudly?

It was cool with ghetto bling rappers and ballers and white wannabe bling rappers and ballers...it resonated with people who came from no money and got some...i.e. people with taste in their mouthes.

Well, they are not the only ones, are they? What do you think of rappers driving around Cadillac Escalade, and basically those rappers are the ones that made the Escalade pretty famous as well, what you say on them?

And I fear you are mostly talking about the American society in general there. I mean, what is your opinion on the royal families, sports players, politicians and such people driving Mercedes?

Mercedes is the new ghetto Cadillac

LOL. God, so funny that the usual suspects come in here and scream "failure" for a Mercedes product. That's all I'll say on this.

I totally agree the sale of the Maybach had souffer to the disign too close to S-class and only until now neither RR or Bentley can not reach a height of comfort in the Maybach!... .Mercedes is the best brand in the world, It will always be a benchmark for others period...

did everyone miss the armor plating? that's why it's double the rolls. this will sell to heads of state and billionaires with ease.

Did not Mercedes trek this dead end road with their still born Maybach?

MB must have an exceptionally short memory.

Definitely hard to see Mercedes pull this off. The Maybach was more than what a shop can do to an S class but it didn't have much of a name. Just going with the Mercedes name is a better start but so far it seems like a version that a bodyshop can pull of (not as good obviously)

as was stated earlier; slap an Aston Martin grille on the front & call it a
Lagonda and it'll sell like hot cakes.
Aston is still successfully selling DB9's with 1998 Volvo tech for crying
out loud.