Mercedes S-Class : In the rarefied world of ultra-luxury motoring, where price tags routinely surpass the value of a working-class American family home, a quiet but fierce war is being waged between the automotive aristocracy.
Long a benchtop for luxury drop-top Motoring, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Cabrio has found Its throne taking on a slew of eager competitors, all with their own unique personalities and high-tech gadgetry aimed at trumping Stuttgart’s standard bearer.
The Unwavering Monarch: Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet
The comparably flagship convertible from Mercedes-Benz remains the car all comers are measured against.
Their blend of old-world craftsmanship with next-generation technology makes for an experience that feels both timeless and futuristic.
Inside, the cabin wraps its occupants in a cocoon of hand-stitched Nappa leather with wood veneers selected with such fastidiousness that Mercedes employs specialists who do nothing but match grain patterns across interior panels.
The party piece of the S-Class Cabriolet is still its “Aircap” and “Airscarf” technology—the former creates an invisible wind deflector that reduces buffeting even at highway speeds, while the latter pumps warm air around the necks of its occupants, prolonging the top-down driving season well into autumn and early spring.
This attention to life and pleasure in the open air has set a new standard against which newcomers must compete.
“It’s not the execution of specific components which still sets Mercedes apart from the herd — it’s their integration into a holistic equation,” says Richard Foster, senior editor, Luxury Car Quarterly.
“The S-Class Cabriolet opens the doors for you in a gentlemanly manner,” our man added, “opening the car’s mouth as if to say, ‘You’ve earned this.’
It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel special in a way that’s just a bit more than other coupes, and it’s why the S-Class Cabriolet feels like it was conceived as one big beautiful vision instead of a collection of features.”
Bentley Continental GT Convertible: Old Money, New Moves
If the Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet is the technological rich guy cloaked in luxury, the Bentley Continental GT Convertible is old-world silk in a tuxedo laced with technology.
The Bentley is imbued with a gravitas beyond even that of Mercedes, and its interiors possess materials that verge on the absurd: wool carpets thick enough to devour shoes, and leather so supple it appears to have been poured into the skeleton rather than spread over it.
What has changed in recent years is Bentley’s newfound sense of dynamism. The days of Continental GTs that were wondrous straight-line cruisers but a bit ponderous in the corners are done.
The newest version, which shares a platform and many design details with Porsche (both marques are Volkswagen Group properties), offers handling precision that makes its roughly 5,300-pound curb weight hard to believe.
“Bentley has pulled off the incredible trick of creating a car that feels both more luxurious and more sporting than the one before,” says British Motoring Heritage’s Charles Winterbottom.
“They’ve kept all the handcrafted stuff traditional buyers want while so much better modernized the driving experience.”
The party piece of the Continental GT Convertible is still that rotating dashboard display, which switches between the touchscreen, analog gauges, and blank wood veneer; being both whimsical and useful, enabling drivers to choose connection or digital detox at the push of a button.
Rolls-Royce Dawn: an Understated Overstatement
Rolls-Royce Dawn rolls around in a classification unto itself as ultra-luxury converts, sitting high above the Mercedes S-Class and Bentley Continental. The Dawn is a curious paradox — the most ostentatious yet also somehow the most understated vehicle in this rarefied segment.
The coach doors of the Dawn (Rolls refuses to call them “suicide doors”) open rearward for a more theatrical entrance than you’ll find in any other car.
But the broad strokes of the design shy away from the sometimes overwrought styling touches that define other ultra-luxury competitors. Its clean lines and perfect proportions whisper, rather than shout.
“The Dawn is the luxury of absence — absence of noise, absence of vibration, absence of effort,” notes Eliza Chatsworth, luxury analyst at Harrington Financial.
“It’s less about what the car does, and much more about what it takes away from the driving experience: stress, discomfort, and any flavor of the everyday.”
Its 6.6-liter V12 produces prodigious power, but it is so isolated from the cabin that passengers could be forgiven for thinking their car runs on electricity, rather than fossilized dinosaur juice.
Riding so brilliantly over broken pavement, the rubbery suspension so successful at erasing vibration and noise, Rolls-Royce marketers refer to it less as simply driving the car and more as propping the butt and wafting off down the road.
Aston Martin DB12 Volante: The Sporty Offer
Whereas cars like the Mercedes, Bentley, and Rolls are focused on comfort and opulence, Aston Martin has made its DB12 Volante the jock of the lineup. Smaller than competitors and with a driver-oriented cockpit that doesn’t compete for space among all occupants, the DB12 Volante is clearly performance-focused.
“DB12 Volante is the sportiest expression of luxury drop-top motoring,” says Thomas Reynolds, engineering consultant and former Aston Martin development driver.
“Its aluminum architecture provides an unbeatable stiffness-to-mass ratio within its group, enabling sharper handling and better ride quality when you compare it with the two-door and four-door alternatives, and the convertible compromises we used to see.”
Aston Martins have always come running behind the Germans in terms of tech implementation, but the new DB12 Volante goes a long way at closing that gap.
The Mercedes-sourced infotainment system (one of the results of Aston’s technical partnership with the German firm) delivers the connectivity modern buyers expect, but bespoke switchgear and interfaces ensure that the experience remains distinctively British.
The twin-turbo V8 of the DB12 Volante gives a symphony that makes us think that the engines of some rivals are talking back, half-guilty at best. Where the Rolls-Royce isolates, the Aston Martin embraces mechanical character via precisely calibrated acoustic conduits that route pleasing exhaust notes directly into the ears of its occupants, which surely all sounds familiar to you by now.
Ferrari Roma Spider: Prancing Horse Gets in on the Action
Enter Ferrari’s new entry into this segment, the Roma Spider, which marks something of a paradigm shift for the Italian marque. Ferrari’s history with convertibles has been an exercise in performance first, luxury second.
The Roma Spider tries to split those priorities a little more evenly, providing a level of day-to-day usability, and comfort, hitherto uncharacteristic of anything to come out of Maranello.
“The Roma Spider is Ferrari’s most serious effort in the grand touring convertible category,” writing in Ferrari: Beyond the Prancing Horse, historian Alessandro Bianchi observes.
“It’s the first time they have made a convertible that doesn’t require some pretty significant sacrifice from its owner in return for the badge.”
Though still more tightly sprung than the German and British rivals, the Roma Spider adds a level of compliance never before seen in Ferrari drop tops.
The interior avoids some of the over-the-top carbon fiber and red stitching of previous models for a surprisingly subdued cabin using tones of cream, tan, and navy blue.
But the Roma Spider’s twin-turbo V8 keeps performance right in Ferrari territory—its 0-60 time of 3.3 seconds ensures that it is the fastest accelerating vehicle in this comparison, edging even the more powerful but heftier Bentley Continental GT Cabriolet.
The New Battleground: Technology
As the chassis engineering arms race reaches its plateau of excellence among these premium automotive manufacturers, the relative performance of technology implementation has become the new frontier of the pattern of domination.
Mercedes has led this charge for some time now, but competition has gained on it considerably.
Technology integration is unique for each manufacturer. Mercedes embraces it as a selling criterion, with carmaker screens that cover the dashboard, a bewildering castle of settings that allow an owner to adjust just about every aspect of the vehicle’s behavior.
Bentley and Rolls-Royce, by contrast, bury technology behind brooding front pages — screens creep out from behind a wood panel, and buttons are camouflaged as classical toggles.
“Especially in the luxury convertible segment, the integration of technology poses challenges,” says Dr. Johanna Schmidt, researcher at the Institute for Automotive Experience Design.
“These vehicles need to integrate state-of-the-art systems without losing that timeless aesthetic that buyers have come to expect and that has been part of our brand DNA for over 130 years.
Each manufacturer addresses this dilemma in its own way, and it’s consistent with their brand values.”
The Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet has a driver assistance package that includes systems that can drive the vehicle almost autonomously under certain conditions.
Rolls-Royce takes the approach one step further, however, employing its navigation system to pull positioning data gathered from the GPS system, feeding pre-calculated suggested gear ratios to the transmission before you even reach a corner, ensuring the Dawn is always in just the right gear without having to think about it.
The Price of Admission
These cars reside in an upper-atmospheric price league that renders them affordable only to the wealthiest customers. The Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet, which starts at about $150,000, is the entry point, and the near triple-figure cost of the Rolls-Royce Dawn speaks for itself.
Sandwiched between those extremes are the Bentley ($225,000), Aston Martin ($245,000) and Ferrari ($260,000).
For this rarified clientele, however, these vehicles are more than just transportation — they are embodiments of personal philosophy and mobile expressions of achievement.
Each had its own interpretation of luxury — whether the techno-savvy sophistication of Mercedes or the monumental presence of Rolls-Royce.
“At this level, buyers are not deciding based on rational factors like fuel economy or resale value,” notes Winston Carmichael, a wealth management advisor focusing on ultra-high-net-worth clientele.
“They’re choosing vehicles to represent how they view themselves — or more accurately, how they want others to view them.”
On the Horizon: Electrification Awaits
The next battleground for these luxury titans will surely be by way of electrification. Mercedes has already said it will offer electric versions of its top-line models, while Bentley recently made a pledge for an all-electric lineup by 2030.
While it is yet to be confirmed, a convertible variants of the EV would make sense, given that Rolls-Royce has also launched its first production EV, the Spectre.
Manufacturers whose identities are partly based on their unique powertrains face unique challenges in what is, effectively, the transition to a new age.
Because how does Bentley replicate W12 character in electric motors? It’s October 2023, so this may have been going on for some time already.
Where the answers to these remain unaddressed, one thing is certain—the tussle to define opulent hoodless automotive activity is only going to rise as the realm of wheels turns.