Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 Cabriolet concept unveiled

Mercedes has taken the wraps off its latest concept, the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 Cabriolet.

To be unveiled at this year’s Monterey Car Week and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – two events that feature some of the world’s rarest and most expensive classic cars – the concept gives us a taste of what we could expect from Mercedes’ top-of-the-range cars in the future.

Headline features include an all-electric drive system, which produces 500kW, equivalent to around 740bhp, with a realistic range of around 200 miles, and it uses four motors (one for each wheel) to provide four-wheel drive.

The result is an electric luxury convertible that can manage 0-62mph in less than four seconds and a limited top speed of 155mph.

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The new concept is as much an exercise in styling as anything else, previewing proportions, details and design touches that could appear on future Mercedes models, Maybach-badged or otherwise.

A long bonnet, huge radiator grille “inspired by a pinstriped suit” and slim headlights all feature, along with a rear end designed to evoke images of luxury yachts. In true concept car tradition, it has huge show-stopping wheels – 24-inches with a rose-gold painted centre-locking mechanism.

Inside, luxury is the name of the game, with lots of traditionally quilted white nappa leather – with each Chesterfield-like button featuring a backlit Mercedes badge. Expensive touches like rose gold trim and open-pore wood flooring to further emphasise the yacht-like feel.

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A real surprise-and-delight feature is the car’s transparent central tunnel, which with a system of fibre-optics that ‘visualises the drive system’s electrical energy flow for the passengers’. Mercedes refers to the opulent interior, designed to complement the car’s exterior as much as possible, as a “360-degree open-air luxury lounge”. There’s a custom-made fabric hood to keep the rain off, ‘with interwoven rose gold threads’.

Maybach is a name synonymous with the ultimate in luxury since the early 1900s. Mercedes relaunched the brand with a pair of standalone models called 57 and 62 in 2002. Today the name is featured on the most luxurious Mercedes S-Class models.