24 cars blue sky: Announcing The Not So New S-Class

Daimler presented its new S-Class yesterday night in the airbus factory in Hamburg, and with the pomp and circumstance appropriate for a car that is supposed to bring the big turn-around at Daimler. German Spiegel magazine promptly grouched "that the most revolutionary part in the car is the fact that in large parts, it is not new at all." Der Spiegel called an unimpeachable witness: Germany's Kraftfahrtbundesamt, the agency that issues type approvals in Germany. It simply amended the type approval for the old W221 model.

That way, Daimler gets around using the new R1234yf refrigerant, and can continue the old. Instead, the new S-Klasse has "six eyes and six ears – is sounds like Frankenstein, but it looks much better," quipped Daimler's Zetsche. The car points cameras in all directions, it even visually acquires cars that are about to rear-end the new S-Class, and it takes appropriate action.

The S-Class doesn't have a single light bulb, instead, it has some 500 LEDs. As a nod to China, the new S-Class was developed with a long wheelbase, the shorter wheelbase is a derivative, and not the other way round.