You'd have to be massively rich and extremely eccentric to seriously consider buying a Maybach - this is a car that looks set to go down in the history books as a costly misjudgement.
Designed and built by Mercedes, the Maybach shares some of its components with the previous generation S Class. Including, perplexingly, most of the stuff that the driver actually gets to touch, including the steering wheel and instrument display.
Not that you're meant to drive a car like this yourself, of course. Maybach buyers are reckoned to be more likely to employ a chauffeur and to spend most of their time in the unarguably sumptuous rear seats.
Which is a good place to be - not least because you don't have to endure the car's grossly obese styling while spending time back there. From the outside even the Maybach's mother would have difficulty loving it - vast, awkward and vulgar. It's certainly got plenty of road presence, but it completely lacks the elegance and class of a Rolls Royce Phantom or Bentley Arnage.
Buyers who do find themselves in the driver's seat will enjoy a suitably wafty dynamic experience and masses of performance from the amazingly smooth V12 engine. The Maybach is supremely comfortable at everything from urban trundling to a flat-out blast down the Autobahn. But although it's happy to be hustled around corners at a fair old lick, it's clear that neither the car or the occupants are likely to enjoy the experience.