2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680: $230,000 Ultra-Luxury Sports Car?!

This is the new 2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series, and it's insane. To create it, Mercedes took their sporty SL Roadster, they gave it a big twin-turbo V8, and the ultra-luxury Maybach treatment, along with a $230,000 price tag. An ultra-luxury, ultra-powerful, sporty car. It sounds unusual, and it is. And today, I'm going to review it and show you all of its many quirks and features. Before we get started, are you ready for your next cool car? Sell your enthusiast's car on Cars and Bids. Trading in your car to dealers means you aren't getting market value for your car, leaving you with less cash for your next fun car. Just look at our recent sales of these cool cars compared to current trade-in value. This is a trade-in offer, and this was the Cars and Bids result. This is a trade-in offer, and this was the Cars and Bids result. This is the trade-in offer, and this is the Cars and Bids result. Get started now on CarsandBids.com. Sell on Cars and Bids and join the best community to sell your enthusiast car. All right, time for the quirks and features of the Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series. Monogram Series, why do they call it that? Well, it's because of all the monograms. We start with the roof. The clothed convertible soft top is covered with Maybach logos, monograms throughout the entire soft top on all of these Maybach SL680 models. It looks like one of those tasteless knockoff handbags that people in Florida have. It's crazy that they've done this, but Maybach logos on the entire roof, monogrammed, and Maybach logos on the entire hood as well. You can see the hood is black, obviously deviated color, two-tone from the rest of the car, and it too is completely covered in Maybach logos. Now, all of these Monogram Series models get the Maybach logos on the roof, but the is a $6,000 optional extra if you want your hood to be covered in Maybach logos. And of course, if you get one of these, you do. And the monograms don't stop there. You also have the Maybach logo printed on this little vent on the front fender, as you can see, and you got a little Maybach logo imprinted into the headlight, or should I say monogrammed. But the most obvious other place you will find Maybach logos is the front grille. You don't see it from far away, but look closely, and you can see down here, covered in Maybach logos going across the entire side of the vehicle. Maybach, Maybach, Maybach, the whole way across. That's your Monogram Series, monogrammed all over the car. But before we get too far into the interesting quirks and features, let's talk through some of the basics about this car. So, the latest generation of the Mercedes SL came out back in 22, and it was completely redesigned with sort of a focus on performance, intended to be faster, more exciting, more engaging than previous SL models, which would kind of become soft and luxurious. Well, now they've come out with one that is intended to be soft and luxurious. For the very first time, Mercedes is applying the Maybach luxury treatment to the SL for the 26 model year, this SL 680 Maybach. It's new for 26, and it uses the same turbo V8 as the SL 63 with an impressive 577 horsepower, but now it's in a Maybach model. So, why did they Maybachify the SL? The sporty roadster gets the ultra luxury treatment. Doesn't seem like it makes sense, but Mercedes said it came after customer requests, which actually makes some sense. Not everybody wants to drive around in a big boat of a car if they want ultra luxury. Some people want to combine sport and luxury, and this does that. And Mercedes says they've completely softened up this car to give it a much more luxury focus compared to the other SL models. For instance, the suspension is softer, more compliant, more plush than other SLs. They've added more sound deadening to make it a quieter, experience inside. They've even reconfigured the drive modes, and Mercedes says the sport mode in this car is actually softer than the comfort mode in the SL 63. So this is really intended to be an SL, but for those who want to cruise in Maybach monogrammed style. But beyond the stuff I've already talked about, this car has a lot of other Maybach upgrades, quirks, and features, if you will. And we begin with the wheels. These giant chrome flat dish wheels just ooze Maybach luxury. I'm not sure they really fit with the design of the SL, but they're on here, they're Maybach, and it's very clear that they're distinctive from the sporty look at other SL models. How about the night lighting on the outside of the car in the dark you walk up to it? You have some projections, lines on the ground, along with the word Maybach spelled out just to remind you that you have the luxury one. And of course there's more. For one, chrome trim all on the outside of this car. The SL is supposed to be the sporty one, so they're mostly blacked out all the trim. Not this. You get chrome around the windshield, as you can see, very heavily chrome there. But it's not just that. Chrome trim, I don't know, the lower side of the door sills, that one says Maybach on it, as you can see, and various other pieces of chrome trim all throughout the outside of the car. Probably the most noticeable chrome, though, comes in front, where you have the vertical slat Maybach grille and Maybach chrome trim around the lower grille. Same deal in back, sort of a distinctive rear-end design with more chrome trim back there to signify the luxury status of this car. And the colors are special too. Right now, the Maybach SL 680 is limited to only two colors. There's this red, which is very beautiful, as you can see. There's also a white, and both come with a black hood. So they're all two-tone cars. Although, like I mentioned, the Maybach monograms on the hood, that is an optional extra. And speaking of colors, while the exterior is offered in those two options, the interior of these Maybach SLs, only comes one way, and that's white. And I don't just mean white on the seats or the dashboard. I mean white everywhere, including the floor and the carpets. And that's how you really show off that you're rich, with white carpeting. Oh, I'm so rich. I don't make carpets dirty. No, no. I have a carpet cleaner who comes for my car. That is the level of luxury that we have going on here. White carpeting in the Maybach SL. And of course, there's a lot more Maybach stuff in here. For one, the materials in here are fantastic. Sort of the top-notch Mercedes Benz materials all throughout this interior. Beautiful stitch leather, aluminum trim. Very nice everywhere you look. The steering wheel, piano black on the outside, leather on the inside. Very Maybach. Very high-class, ultra-luxury, like you would expect from a Maybach model. And you have a host of Maybach logos in here, like you'd expect. We start with the door sill, where you have this beautiful piece of aluminum with Maybach written across the whole thing, just to remind you what you're stepping into. On those white floor mats, you once again have the Maybach logo monogrammed into them, just to remind everybody, once you're sitting down, that you're in a Maybach model. You also have a giant Maybach logo stitched into the seat back. It's actually somewhat subtle because it sort of fits in with the quilted pattern of the seat itself, but there it is. You have the Maybach logo on the pedals, which by the way are beautiful aluminum pedals with Maybach on both of them. And the key is even a distinctive Maybach key with white coloring to match the white interior. But while all that stuff is interesting to look at and adds to the luxury and class of this interior, probably the most notable change to the Maybach SL 680, aside from the monogrammed roof, actually comes behind the front seats where you do not have rear seats. Now that's different from the regular SL models that are four-seaters, two front seats, two in back. You don't get that in the Maybach SL. Strangely, it becomes less practical. Instead, behind the front seats, you have this leather storage compartment that uses the same quilted leather as the seats on the rear area. If you want to place your luxury handbag behind the seats, that's where you'd want to do it instead of seats itself. Now, one cool touch they did for these cars is this panel they've placed behind the front seats, sort of between the seats and the trunk, that gives it kind of this fastback image. Since you don't have rear seats here, this panel sort of sits in this spot and actually really enhances the profile and the look of this car. I think it's really attractive, although you can see that this panel too is covered in monogrammed Maybach logos, just like the roof is, so that when the roof is down and it's next to this panel, it all looks the same with Maybach monograms everywhere you can see. And there's more, of course. You can see another Maybach logo on the back of the front seats. This panel sort of sticks up, doesn't seem to have any real purpose except to display the Maybach logo out to the masses when the roof is down. And speaking of Maybach monograms, you will also notice more of them on the top of the door panel. Very subtle, but this whole leather piece here has Maybach logos monogrammed into it. And they've even managed to add monogrammed Maybach logos to the cloth soft top of the car in the little digital image showing the car in the screen. So this isn't just a generic SL with a cloth soft top, it's a Maybach specifically with the matching monogrammed Maybach logos as part of this little screen image, which is ridiculous, but it adds to the attention to detail and the luxury of your Maybach SL 680. Now, speaking of the screens, a few quirks and features worth discussing here. For one, the display angle situation. There's a little button down here that you can push that will allow you to adjust the display angle of the screen. You press it, and then you use this slider on screen to change the angle it's displayed. The thinking here is that if you're in direct sunlight in a certain angle, you might be able to change the angle, allowing you to see the screen a little better. I actually think this is a pretty neat idea, even though it's probably something that will break in the future. It is helpful, especially on a convertible where direct sunlight is going to be a common problem. Now, beyond that, the screen itself is fantastic. Mercedes MBUX system really works well. Very intuitive, very responsive, very easy to use. A lot of great apps integrated into the screen. Even if you don't want to use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, it all just works wonderfully. And that's also true of the gauge cluster screen, which is very configurable, easy to use, easy to change, to show and display whatever information it is that you want to see. Very nice technology in this car. And there is an interesting quirk when it comes to the drive modes. You can see this button down here. It says dynamic. You press that to change the drive modes of the car. And you have your usual ones. There's comfort, which of course has the engine, transmission, and suspension in comfort mode. There's sport, where you have the engine, transmission, and suspension in sport mode. And then there's Maybach. And if you press that, the logo has a little diamond on it. When it comes up, there's all these Maybach monograms around the car on the screen. And you can see that the engine and suspension actually go into a mode called Maybach. Not comfort, not sport, Maybach. What does that mean? Well, you will only know if you have the money for a Maybach SL 680. Otherwise, to the plebeians watching, it's just something you'll have to wonder about. Now, beyond that stuff, a lot of the other quirks and features in here, similar to what you would find in the regular SL. And that means you have your power top buttons here in the center, in the center console. And interestingly, there's one button to make the top go down that you pull, then the top goes down. And as you can see, it does so quite quickly and kind of in a compact way. It's a small top, so it can get down fast. There's another separate button to make the top go up. So you don't just press the top down button the opposite direction. You have a separate top up button. And again, the top goes quickly, quietly. It all happens relatively fast. And then the top latches, of course, fully automatic. You don't do anything but press the button. Other cool things in this interior. For one, you have air scarf. This button on the door panel, you press, it turns on air scarf, which is a heating system that's built into the seat back that sends warm air out by your neck. So when you're driving around with the top down on a cool day, you turn on air scarf and warm air sort of blows directly onto your neck from the seat, which obviously warms you up. It's a really cool feature. A lot of Mercedes-Benz models have it. And of course, the Maybach does too. And another great feature to see in a convertible is there's a button here for all windows down. So you can see you have buttons to drop the front and rear windows individually. But if you press this button marked all, then you can drop all the windows at once or raise them all back up with the push of one window button instead of having to do them all individually, which is a lovely feature to see in a convertible. I wish all cars had it, especially all convertibles. And it's nice that this one does. As for other quirks with the Maybach SL, one is the door handles, which are pretty cool. They're flush with the body when the door is locked, as you can see, but you unlock the door and they pop out automatically. And they display the Mercedes-Benz script as they pop out just to remind you of what you're climbing into. Beyond that, get into the trunk, which of course is fully power operated. You can see it's pretty small. There's not all that much room in here, but you do have a couple of cool things. For one, there's a little blinking light on the inside of the trunk lid. That is your emergency trunk release. So if somebody tries to kidnap you in a Maybach SL 680, possible, you don't have just a boring handle. This is a luxury car. Kidnapped people have a luxury experience. They press this flashing button and then they climb out of the trunk. There's also a button in here that looks a little weird. It's sort of a car with a trunk and an arrow. It doesn't really make a lot of sense what that is, but it's a pretty cool feature. If you're loading up the trunk with cargo, with stuff, and the roof is up, you press this button and it will lower a panel that will show you exactly how much space the roof needs to open. And that way you load up all your stuff, you're driving along, you want to put the roof down, you don't have to get out of the car and reorient all your stuff in the trunk in order to get the roof down because you already knew how big the roof was going to be when it went down because of that button. It's a pretty cool idea to have that. A lot of convertibles don't, and you only find out that you've overloaded the trunk once you're driving along and you want to put down the roof. I like that feature. Now, it's also worth pointing out that even the trunk has not been spared from the Maybach monograms. You can see the Maybach logo imprinted onto the trunk mat, which, by the way, is also surrounded with white piping to really drive home the luxury point. They couldn't put white carpeting in the trunk, even for Maybach, that would be ridiculous, but the white piping and white Maybach logos are there just to remind you of the class that you have. And speaking of Maybach logos, we move under the hood where you can see another Maybach logo has been, well, monogrammed, if you will, onto the engine cover to remind even those looking under the hood this is not a standard SL, it is the Maybach. But it is, like I mentioned, the standard SL63 engine. And again, that's a twin-turbo V8 with 577 horsepower. Now, I will say, even though that's a high-performance, powerful engine, to Maybachify the SL, they've added about 400 pounds to this car. Even though they've taken away the back seats, all the extra luxury and leather and is another 400 pounds, which means 0-60 about 3.2 seconds on the SL63, probably more like 3.5 seconds on this car. Still fast. And it still comes standard with all-wheel drive, just like the SL63 model. As for pricing, an SL63 with this powertrain starts around $190,000, big money. This car starts around $225,000, huge money. And the sticker on this one is about $233,000, in part due to that $6,000 optional Maybach monogrammed hood. But how could you possibly avoid such a feature? Anyway, I am very curious to see what an ultra-luxury, sporty roadster Maybach feels like on the road. So let's get behind the wheel and see how this car drives. All right, driving the Mercedes Maybach SL680, a Maybach sports car, sort of. Why did they make this vehicle? They say because there's demand for it among their customers. Do we believe them? Yeah. I could imagine people who say, I want a Maybach, I want that experience, that level of quality and custom tailoring and beauty. But I want, I'm driving, I'm in Palm Beach, I'm older, my kids aren't around. I want something that's just cool, that like is cooler than driving a Maybach GLS SUV or a Maybach sedan. And this car is that. Now I will say, first experience driving it, they claim the ride is like significantly softer than the SL63. And I, based on kind of the way that this car was pitched, I got in it assuming that it was going to be like a really comfortable car. It's still an SL, which has grown a lot sportier in its most recent generation in the last few years. And so it still rides, I wouldn't say harsh, but it's not necessarily, it's not soft by any stretch of the imagination. This car is not what I would consider to be like, I mean, the Maybach S-Class is one of the softest, most comfortable, most pillowy, smooth, cloud-like experiences you'll ever have as a human being. That's not the situation with this car. This car is definitely a little bit in the harsher realm. It does feel more compliant than an SL63, but if I were to rate it on a scale of Maybach S-Class to SL63, it's closer to the SL63 than it is to the Maybach S-Class. And I think that's just sort of the nature of this platform, sort of a short, sharp little car. Now, beyond the ride quality, I will say there is a lot of very obvious Maybach in here. And what I mean by that is you do not hear a lot that's going on outside. It is a very quiet world out there. You really don't hear much noise coming from the outside world. You do not hear much in terms of what's going on in your own car. There's some engine noise, but sort of like the amount that you would want, like just enough to know you've got something with some muscle. They don't completely drown it out, but it doesn't sound, there's no like loud exhaust or intake. Even though this is the AMG powertrain, the big which we know can sound crazy in some of the other cars. It's very muted here. It growls, but sort of like, you know, it's not like coming at you. It does a good job eliminating most tire noise. Like it has Maybach quality in terms of that. And then there's just sort of the general sitting in here and looking around and kind of feeling this car out. And it's just so Maybach. The seats are so comfortable. Everything you touch is just so ultra high quality. The steering wheel with its piano black on the outside and leather on the inside. I mean, this feels like an ultra high quality vehicle like you would expect from a Maybach. This is a very nice car. And one thing I also really love is the effortlessness of both the powertrain and the transmission. You floor it in this car and it goes fast, but the transmission, you don't really have to floor it in order to get going quickly. You sort of do a half throttle, sort of a more graceful maneuver with your foot. And the car responds very well, but very smoothly. The transmission smooth shifts incredibly smoothly. Like this car is in tune for a more comfortable experience. And that is exactly what it delivers, like a more calm, smooth, comfortable experience, yet still wrapped in this sort of sporty SL roadster situation. Really, it's a pretty nice car if you're in the unusual demographic for whom this is a desirable vehicle. Like it's a kind of odd situation for sure to want like an ultra luxury kind of, I don't call it a sports car, but it's very close to that realm. But if that's you, I think this delivers. Like if I was to name the qualities of an ultra luxury sports car, it would be pretty much this. Like it gives you the good power and the kind of the look and the feel of like a snazzy roadster sports car that any sort of an older person would like, you know, get some respect in Palm Beach or wherever, Greenwich. But it also gives you the ability to kind of have a more relaxing, more comfortable experience, even though you can't completely tune out the sports car-ness. But if you're getting this vehicle, you're probably expecting and accepting some of that stuff. And yet it still feels like effortless and relatively calm and yet sporty. And to the extent that people want this, Mercedes has done a good job providing it, even though it definitely is a bit of an unusual vehicle proposition. And so that's the new 2026 Mercedes Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series. This is an interesting car, an ultra luxury Maybach mixed in with a high performance sports car convertible roadster with an insanely high price tag to match. It's very unusual and definitely quirky. And now it's time to give this SL 680 a Doug's score. And the Doug's score is here, 61 out of 100, which puts the Maybach SL 680 dead last in this group of competitors. Although these really aren't competitors because basically nothing is a competitor for this unusual car. In the weekend categories, the SL 680 loses out to the AMG SL 63 and others, which makes sense because it's not much of a performance car. But in the daily categories, the SL 680 again falls short as its practicality score is dinged for losing the back seats. Its ride comfort isn't enough to elevate it to Bentley levels and its price tag is really high. I fully believe there is a market for the Maybach SL 680. It's just a small one. But for that group, nothing else will do.