The 2021 Mercedes-Maybach GLS600 Is a $175,000 Ultra-Luxury SUV that Bounces

this is the 2021 mercedes-maybach gls 600 and it's a luxury suv but it's not like every other mercedes luxury suv this has 550 horsepower it costs just under 200 000 and it's not meant to drive but it's meant for you to be driven by a chauffeur this is the ultimate mercedes luxury suv and today i'm going to review it [Music] before i get started be sure to check out cars and bids which is my new enthusiast car auction website we've had some great sales recently on cars and bids including this pristine 96 chevy impala ss which sold for 22 thousand dollars this beautiful bentley continental super sports convertible gorgeous car sold for just under 83 000 and this porsche cayman bright yellow 981 with a manual transmission sold for around 30 thousand dollars if you're looking to sell your cool car from the modern era cars and bids is the place to do it you'll get the most money and the most interest for your special car and if you're looking to buy a cool car check out cars and bids we have daily auctions with great variety and some amazing cars on cars and bids i've borrowed this gls 600 from mercedes-benz of temecula which is a mercedes-benz dealership here in temecula which is northeast of san diego mercedes-benz of temecula of course has all of the latest mercedes-benz models and that includes the gls-600 which has been tremendously hard to find but it is available here at mercedes-benz of temecula so let's talk gls 600 this is based on the mercedes gls which is their full-size suv primarily aimed at families with children except this isn't this has been given the mybach treatment which mercedes-benz reserves for their ultra luxury cars and this is an ultra luxury car to create this car mercedes ditches the third row seating instead the back seat is designed for chauffeur-driven passengers to bathe in as much luxury as possible the starting price for a gls 600 is over 160 000 double the base price of a base model gls and there's luxury and chrome and leather and crazy features everywhere and today i'm going to show you all that first i'll take you on a tour of the gls 600 and show you all the quirks and features of the ultimate mercedes-benz suv then i'm going to get it out on the road and drive it and then i'll give it a doug score all right before i show you all of the wonderful luxury quirks and features of the maybach gls i've borrowed this one from mercedes-benz to show you possibly its finest quirk of all and that would be the fact that it bounces yes that's right it bounces take a look [Music] now you might be wondering why does it do this well this is an off-road feature the theory is if you're stuck in sand or in difficult mud and you can't quite get out going forward or backwards you can turn this on and then bounce up and down and maybe that will jostle you free of the sander of the mud and then you can drive off that's the theory anyway and it's available at speeds of up to nine miles an hour now in reality no one will use it that way because no one will ever off-road this vehicle and people are primarily using this feature on pavement just to flex on instagram that they have a bouncing mybach suv but it can do it it can bounce that's a factory setting a bouncing suspension it's ridiculous anyway now back to the other quirks and features all right i'm going to start the quirks and features of the gls 600 by getting into the back the most luxurious and insane part of the car but before i do that i have to open the back door and you will notice the running board extends out so you can climb inside now that's not all that uncommon a lot of luxury vehicles have this feature but two interesting things to note in the gls for one the running board actually gets wider for the rear passengers you can see there is a running board in front but it's narrow and it extends out in the back because rear passengers are the most important thing in this vehicle you'll be chauffeur driven you need the wider running board for your safety who cares about your chauffeur you will also notice with this running board that there is a maybach logo but again only one in the rear part of the running board because it doesn't matter if the chauffeur knows that it's a maybach they can't afford one anyway you just want rear passengers to be aware of what they're riding in but anyway once you climb into the gls you close the door obviously and then the running board retracts back into the vehicle its job is done until the next time when you want to get back out and the running board extends so you can climb on it pretty nice but anyway next climbing inside the gls it is impossible not to be awestruck when you come back here a normal gls has five seats in the back spread over two rows this thing has only two seats and they're beautiful they look like those airplane seats that youtubers make videos of that cost twelve thousand dollars a flight you have that in your car you can see individual chairs beautiful reclined unbelievable level of luxury back here for the chauffeur driven passenger but before i get into the seats let's talk pillows you have two pillows for each seat one is on the headrest you can see there's a normal headrest but then placed in front of that is a pillow a soft fluffy pillow to make your sitting experience more comfortable for your head you also have a pillow that's not attached to the seat at all just sort of is there for your comfort to be placed wherever you want this is a leather pillow with beautiful stitching and the mybach logo printed on it in the leather so you know exactly which brand it is that's making you so comfortable and things just get crazier from there these are beautiful seats gorgeous reclined lots of room and they have a lot of neat tricks to them too for one thing they're fully power adjustable of course everything you could possibly think of power operated on the door including there is a foot rest that extends out from the bottom of the seat and can go all the way up to make it perfectly comfortable for you to lie down and even your feet are supported the seat offers full body support with a power operated foot rest and two pillows and there's more than that the seats are heated back here of course and cooled as well ventilated rear seats you don't see that too often and you even have memory settings for the back seats which is a pretty impressive feat i don't know that i've ever really seen that outside of the craziest rolls-royce in bentley models and in this control area on the door you also have a power window of course but you can use that same switch to put up and down your power sun shade you pull it up when the window is up and the sun shade goes up to shade you from the sun if the sunshade is already in place and you push down on the window button then the sun shade goes down and of course you put it down a second time and then the window goes down you will notice you also have a larger sunshade button here that is for the shade over the panoramic sunroof so you press that up or down and that will open or close the shade over the panoramic roof very impressive controls but there's a lot more luxury back here than just that stuff i'm gonna go into the middle you have this giant fixed center console between the two rear seats and there's a lot of cool stuff at the very front you have climate controls back here that's no real surprise a lot of luxury vehicles have their own climate zones for the rear passengers but this one does too now in front of the climate controls you have this large panel you open this up and it reveals your cup holders and they are heated or cooled you can heat or cool them with the push of this button and check this out when you turn on the cup holder heater or cooler a light comes on in the cup holder corresponding to what you've just turned on so it turns red if you have the heat on for the cup holder and it turns blue if you have the cold on for the cup holder and that might be a little gimmick but i have to admit i absolutely love it and next up in front of the panel with the cup holders this next area is all about charging you have two usbc ports for each side back here so you have two ports for the left seat and you have two more ports for the right seat so people sitting back here can charge all of their devices the thinking is you have two important business people back here trying to charge all sorts of stuff at once you need a lot of chargers you also have this weird thing sticking out this is a wireless cell phone charger so in case the usb c ports are taken up charging other stuff you can put your phone here and just have it charged very simply without having to plug it into anything now next up i'm going to go to the back in between the two seat backrests you have this beautiful mybach logo with this gorgeous pinstripe design this is actually a lid you open this up and that is where you will find the refrigerator in this car yes you have a refrigerator in the back seat you can open it up turn on the cooling system and it will refrigerate whatever you place inside wouldn't expect anything less from this chauffeur driven by buck and there is still more back here you open up this center piece which is actually a lid revealing a compartment that contains fold out trays you can fold them out and then you can see there's a tray right in front of you as you sit back here which would make it easy to eat while you're being chauffeured around or use your laptop or whatever it is that you want read the paper put a drink on it you have individual trays for each rear seat that is pure luxury but even more luxurious than that is what is on the lid covering that compartment with the trays you have this little tablet back here and this tablet controls all sorts of different things in the back of this car check this out if you want to use the tablet you can just use it sitting in this spot but it's a little bit hard to see so press the eject button and the tablet is given to you it is gracefully pushed off its little dock and then you can pick it up and use it like a remote control for various vehicle functions now this tablet has some amazing controls in it probably my favorite is the massage setting feature there are five different massages that the seats will give you these are the back seats mind you and you're using a tablet to turn on the massage my favorite is the hot shoulder massage this is the seat giving you a combination of heated seat and shoulder massage to simulate a hot shoulder massage while you're being chauffeured around in your my back using your tablet that is insane and of course the tablet can do a lot more than that you want to change the ambient lighting color back here the color and all the light strips well you can do that with the tablet if you want to go from green to blue or orange whatever color you want make those changes in the tablet you can also use the tablet to open or close all of the sun shades i already showed you that you can do that with the press of buttons on the door panel but in case you don't want to press plebian buttons and you instead want to do it in your high class remote control tablet well you can do that and you never have to reach up and press the door panel buttons it's a lot easier on your tablet and of course the tablet can do more than that it can also change the radio media that you're listening to for the entire vehicle so the rear seat passenger has that control and you can also change various settings and things back here using the tablet all sorts of different items now when you're finished with the tablet you can simply place it back in its dock and then press the eject button again and it will again gracefully pull it back down and lock it into place so you don't have to fiddle with it to get it in place you have machines that will do that for you but of course but with all the pure luxury back here it's also worth noting that just everything is nice in the back of this car every material is either leather or this piano black trim stitching everywhere it looks gorgeous on the door panel you have this beautiful pin stripe black with the white stripes that looks like a fine suit it is fantastic and this car is not shy about placing my back logos everywhere my favorite one in the back is on the back of the front seat you can see piano black pinstriping and a mybach logo right in the middle this has no purpose except to stare right at you and remind you that you are in a my back not just a regular mercedes-benz but the maybach logos in back are no match for some of the creatively placed mybach logos in front for example this is the hand rest for when you're using the infotainment system control pad and it has a mybach logo on it just the hand rest but it's right there in the center so you always see it my personal favorite maybach logos up here though are on the pedals you can see brake pedal and gas pedal both very beautiful aluminum with the mybach logo staring right at you in case you happen to glance into the pedal box you'll be reminded that you're in a my box also another noteworthy mybach logo in here is in the infotainment system in the gauge cluster you have these mybach logos in here and you can see there's a slight glean to them like the sun is catching them just right even though they're actually electronic but you put a mybach logo in you want it to have a little glimmer of luxury but anyway the quirks and features of the front seat up here up front not as much has changed as in back where you have all that chauffeur driven stuff it's just a really nice gls up here basically i especially like again the black trim with the pinstriping going across the whole dashboard and i especially like how they've matched some of the pinstripes to line up with the lines on the climate control vents it gives it a very classy look in here and i really like that trim i'm not the biggest fan of piano black trim but it really looks perfect in this car it does look like a very high-end suit you also just have really nice materials all over this interior there is basically no plastic up here everything is leather wrapped or piano black or aluminum chrome you just have the nicest possible maibok mercedes experience in the front of this car also worth noting up here you have a burmester sound system one of the highest end names in automotive sound and they have beautiful speakers on the door you can see silver gorgeous they look fantastic and you open up this panel and once again you're presented with cup holders which once again are heated or cooled you can press this button to turn on the heat or the cool depending on whether you want your drink to stay warmer or colder a great feature and again i love that it lights up blue or red depending on what you're doing now next up i want to talk infotainment this is the new mercedes mbux system i've reviewed it in many new mercedes-benz models but i just have to mention again i think this is the best infotainment system in the entire car industry better than every other brand it is insanely responsive insanely intuitive and tremendously usable because you have three different places you can control it you can use it as a touch screen you can see and control it there or you can use this pad in the center you can control the system there if you'd prefer not to be distracted by a touch screen or you can also control it using these steering wheel controls over on the right so you basically have many different ways to control this system it is fantastic very usable very intuitive and it's the same deal with the gauge cluster again the best in the industry huge screen tremendously configurable you can change all three panels of the gauge cluster to show whatever it is that you want to see and you can also go full screen with whatever you want to display it is a fantastically great system mbux it really is the best in the business and i highly highly recommend it a good benefit of the gls 600 for the driver even though the real benefits aren't back and speaking of this infotainment system some interesting quirks and features about it one your car probably has heated seats this has heated panels you can see here you turn on panel heating in this car and then when you activate the heated seats it also activates heated panels like your armrests so you're sitting in the front or in the back and you can have heated panels heating up your arms in addition to your heated seat heating up your butt and back that's a pretty cool feature but probably the best infotainment system quirk is a feature called energizing comfort you go here and then you can select a program that actually allows you to do muscle workouts while you drive down the street you can push your butt your back up against certain pressure points in the seat and it will train you and keep your muscles going even while you're sitting for a long period of time driving your car this gls comes with a training workout built into the infotainment system that's wild and next up a few other interesting infotainment features one very quirky one is car wash mode you can put this gls in car wash mode and then it will go through this entire checklist of items in order to prepare for an automatic car wash like it'll fold in the mirrors it'll turn off the automatic wipers it'll do all of the things you see on this checklist automatically since it knows you're about to enter an automatic car wash and those are the things that you'd want to do to prepare so you don't have to like turn off the wipers yourself manually and fold in the mirrors the car will do that for you with the click of one mode and then you can see when you're in car wash mode there's actually an image of a maybach gls going through an automatic car wash which is just a hilarious image to see and next up another wonderful infotainment quirk is with the drive modes you have your normal drive modes in here comfort sport off-road but you also have one called mybach so what exactly is the mybach drive mode apparently it's a level beyond comfort because when you tap on it it tells you what all the settings are two of them are in comfort but two are specifically in my back which is their own level of comfort that's the luxurious mode you'd want for this vehicle one other infotainment feature that's bizarre is something called traffic light view and the way this works is you're driving along and you pull up to an intersection with a traffic light it senses that and shows an image of the intersection showing the traffic light on your screen the theory here is if you're like too tall and your vision might be obstructed by the roof you can't see the traffic light the car will show the color of the light for you so you can just look at the screen and see when it changes to green and you don't have to look at the light itself a very odd feature but this car has it you can turn on or off if you don't want to see the traffic lights but anyway let's get back to discussing some of the maybachness of this car some of the features you only get if you get the mybach version from an exterior perspective they're probably most obvious up front where you have a totally different front-end design from a regular gls for one thing this lower grill is all chrome it's not trying to be sporty or rugged it just wants to emphasize luxury and this is an easy way to distinguish the myback gls from the regular model same deal with the upper grille you can see instead of the usual mercedes stuff you just have these vertical slats going across that is the distinctive my bot grill and it even says my back at the very top in the center reminding you precisely what this car is everything up front very distinctive very maybach and very different from a regular gls see one of these from the front you'll be able to tell instantly that it isn't your standard gls and it's the same deal with the wheels these are some wheels 23 inch wheels distinctive to the maybach gls i counted and they have 24 spokes each and it says my back right in the center in two places just so you know what you're looking at again these wheels not available on the regular gls you gotta get the mybach to get these and they look very distinctive and next up few other notable maybach gls exclusive items on the outside for one thing you have this mybach badge on the rear pillar on the side you have it on both sides just to again emphasize this is not a regular gls they cram more mybach logos in here just to remind everybody what this is also of course on the rear on the tailgate it says mybach over on the left again emphasizing the luxury brand and it says gls 600 on the right interestingly my back models use a different font on the back than regular mercedes benz you can see this is the regular mercedes font it's sort of more squared off they've been using this font for years but the myback does not use that instead it's more of an updated different font i guess to distinguish them from standard mercedes-benz models now around back you can also see just a lot of chrome back here chrome chrome chrome everywhere no black plastic trim on the outside of this car everything is the nicest stuff possible because this is the mybach and next up since i'm around back let's move into the cargo area of the gls 600 where you have some interesting surprises the most obvious of which is the fact that it's actually smaller in here than the cargo area of a regular gls because there's a giant box that would be for the refrigerator of course the second row has a refrigerator a lot of components are needed to make that work and so it spills into the cargo area and it limits the space you have back here also worth noting you can't put down the rear seats they are fixed in place they do not fold down for more cargo space if you're looking for the mercedes gls to maximize cargo room this is definitely not the one this is all about rear passenger comfort at the expense of cargo space actually but there are a few other interesting items back here worth noting for one the rear cargo cover of course has the mybach logo on it facing out so you see it the moment you open up the tailgate to get something into the cargo area no shortage of reminders that this is a my box and finally we move under the hood of the gls 600 this engine is a twin-turbo v8 that makes 550 horsepower it's basically the amg mercedes engine just detuned a little bit and put in the mybach and you can see the mybach logo is once again here appearing on top of the engine cover on this beautiful silver plaque once again reminding you that this is a maybach in case you missed the 57 000 other badges all throughout this car now it's worth noting that this is not the most powerful version of the gls that honor goes to the mercedes amg gls 63 which has over 600 horsepower the amg high performance model but while that one is more focused on performance the mybach version is all about luxury and it has a little less power but a lot more equipment and it's a lot more expensive and speaking of expensive let's talk pricing for a second you can see the window sticker right here the maybach gls has a starting price of around 160 000 which is a lot you can see there aren't really that many options this thing is so fully loaded you don't really have to add all that much to it so this has a total price of just over 170 000. my very favorite option though is the one that says refrigerated compartment and then in parentheses champagne fridge just in case you didn't know what to do with that rear refrigerated compartment it's for champagne it says that on the window sticker you don't put sandwiches in there you put champagne they make that very clear and so those are the quirks and features of the mercedes-maybach gls 600 now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the mybach gls i've wanted to check this car out ever since they first announced it i thought it was going to be an insane vehicle and it is the first thing you notice when you get behind the road it feels very substantial very sturdy i drove a regular gls and i was not that impressed i thought it was fine um but it wasn't as good as the x7 that felt more luxurious more you know had a more of a luxury feel to it this car very different situation this feels more sturdy it feels like more of a luxury car and that's kind of underscored everything around you so nice so luxurious in here it all just looks great and of course the v8 helps too you got instant throttle response especially on the low end so you really feel like you're moving something you feel like there's a lot left when you're driving this car most importantly though probably the most surprising thing to me right now um it is incredibly good at keeping the outside world out i'm not hearing a thing outside now this is surprising because even though this is the maybach version 200 000 blah blah it's still based on a gls which is a good luxury car but you you hear stuff i mean this is like bentley or rolls-royce levels of quiet and this is especially surprising because i've gone over all the crazy quirks and features and all the stuff they've done to make this so luxurious but they've obviously done even more under the skin to make it feel even more i mean it's very very insulated from the world all right i'm gonna accelerate here oh wow quick it feels amazingly quick i could just see people getting chauffeured down the autobahn in this thing going from hanover to freiburg i don't know where those places are at 200 miles an hour okay like 130 but the point is it would be a very very capable autobahn cruiser if you were getting chauffeured around or in china which i assume is more the market for this china the middle east where chauffeur cars are a little bit more common where people are willing to spend a lot more money on you know luxury suvs here in the states nobody's really getting chauffeured around unless they're in new york city maybe a couple other places really uncommon and so cars like this aren't going to be as strong but it is still the top of the mybach range really top-end range rovers do well here and i suspect this will compete it is interesting to see what mercedes-benz has done with the maibok name they've been very smart about it you know they made those sedans a while ago the maybach 5762 didn't do all that well looked like s-classes so mercedes went back and they just thought it all up again they said how about we make maybach like the ultimate we're a luxury brand how about the luxury luxury brand and they've done that and they've done a good job and everybody i know knows what my bike is you can kind of tell there's subtle signs and when you see one it's like wow that's a serious car and i feel that way about that the last maybach model i reviewed was the mybach s-class cabriolet and i made the same point in that review that i shall make here it was an amazing car it was just as good as any bentley but you know it doesn't quite have the brand name and mybach is very good and the interior quality is excellent but you could get instead of this car you could get a bentega almost not quite but if you stretch a little more on your budget or you can get the nicest range rover on the planet i mean those are like just about the same price a little more and those brand names are just stronger than like gls gls says you see at the kid's soccer game in a nice neighborhood you know this is just a gls to a lot of people and so that's what mybach has to overcome they're ultimately making versions of cars rather than individual distinctive models and that's what the hard part is but if you can get past that you're getting a budget priced i don't want to say culling in but because it's not quite that level of like utter comfort cloud ride feeling and interior quality but it's not that far off it's not as far off as i would think based on the fact that it's just a gls that's kind of been dressed up a lot and so that's the mercedes mybach gls 600 the ultimate mercedes luxury suv the days of the sedan are kind of coming to an end so it may make sense to create this this is sort of the mercedes s600 pullman of the suv era and i'm thrilled that i had the chance to check it out and now it's time to give the gls 600 a doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the gls 600 looks nice not too different from a normal gls except for trim wheels etc and it gets a 6 out of 10. acceleration does 0 to 60 in the high 4 second range and it gets a 6 out of 10. handling isn't sharp or sporty but that's no surprise and it gets a 4 out of 10. fun factor is relatively low it's fast but not exactly tuned for thrilling driving and it gets a 4 out of 10. cool factor is higher though those huge wheels the maybach brand name and those crazy luxury seats in back and it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 26 out of 50. next up are the daily categories and features the gls is loaded it's not missing much and it gets a nine out of ten comfort is excellent not quite rolls-royce excellent but closer than you might think given the price difference and it gets a nine out of ten quality is impressive the standard gls is only okay with its materials but the myback version is a huge improvement and it gets a 9 out of 10. practicality is good but not too high since it loses some seats to become a my bike and it gets a 7 out of 10. finally value and that's only ok these are insanely cool and luxurious and special but they're very big money to match and it gets a five out of ten though i could see that going up if production is limited and value stay strong anyway total daily score here is 39 out of 50. and if you add it up the doug score is 65 out of 100 which places it here against relevant cars it gets closer to the rolls-royce culinary bentley bentega than i expected but the maybach gls can't quite match the bentega's driving experience or the culinary's pure luxury then again the gls is a lot cheaper than both of those ultra luxury rivals [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,176,978

Keywords:

Id: xTm6b6mQTIQ

Length: 29min 55sec (1795 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/RandomAsianPornStar]

Everybody gangster till Doug starts bouncing

[u/[deleted]]

It’s a nice SUV and all, bouncing feature and price aside. Although I just don’t think this SUV has enough brand cachet to influence Bentley or Rolls Royce buyers.

I understand they’re going after the people who have chauffeurs, but in the US, how common is that? I know it’s popular in other countries.

[u/thekingadrock93]

This thing looks like an early 2000s Lincoln Navigator that’s owned by a Mexican family where the dad decided to buy all the replacement chrome components he could find and slap em on everywhere. Especially the grill

[u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid]

Looks like the next episode is Alpine XB7. I wonder what is next ultra luxury SUV review after this and XB7.

[u/HeshootsHescores88]

Uncontrollable laughter bouncing Doug is the best Doug

[u/pryan886]

Massaging seats, leather pillows, color changing ambient lighting, heated cupholders, a champagne fridge, wireless phone charger, and a tablet to control it all.

This is like The Sharper Image Edition of the GLS.

[u/YahBoiSquishy]

That bouncing thing looks ridiculous, and Doug's right that no-one would take that thing offroading. Not the biggest SUV fan, but that's a very nice car. Besides the quirky cars, the luxury cars are my favorite of the reviews. I just like seeing all the weird luxury stuff that gets put into these things.

Also, isn't 175k not too bad as far as ultra luxury cars go? It's before options, obviously, but don't the rest of the Maybachs start around 200k, and the first Bentley starts around there as well? Forgive me if I got something wrong, but for a chauffer-driven car that doesn't seem too bad.

[u/rogersmj]

This car does have some great ideas. Car Wash Mode sounds nice...I don't take our cars to the scratch-o-matic all that much, but trying to remember to turn off the auto wipers, the parking sensors, etc (and then turn them all back on) is a bit of a pain.

The traffic light cam is pretty smart too. Definitely been in some situations where that would have been useful.

[u/cypher448]

Calling it now, the bouncing Maybach and the Koenigsegg's levitating orb camera are going to be two of the biggest quirks of 2021.