A bit of all Wight

Report 4 Mercedes S500 Cab £111,215 OTR/ £126,520 as tested

Being an island isn’t always a positive thing, but at least it means plenty of coastal roads. You’ll be amazed by some of the roads the little splodge in the Solent, the Isle of Wight, serves up.

From Ventnor I head south in the S500 Cabrio to Freshwater. You know the cliche about a car shrinking itself around you? Well, the Merc doesn’t do that; it purposely feels rather grand. With another phrase in my head (“match speed with vision” – that’s from my driving mentor Paul Ripley), the frst few miles are done at a cautious lope. The roads are narrow, the hedges tall, and I don’t want to annoy the locals. Not that there are many.

But the tarmac is also blessedly well-surfaced, and as the landscape unfurls itself, sweeping green vistas to my right, clifs and beaches on the left, suddenly we’re on a section of road as good as the causeway coast in Antrim or some of the Scottish Highlands’ highlights. OK, it doesn’t last as long, but rather than endless second-gear twiddly bits, it has what I love in a decent driving road: fast fourth- and ffth-gear sweeps, and good sight lines.

On these (wider) roads, the S500 really is an imperious machine, sublimely comfy as it dissects another chunk of road. The S500 Cab has just received a facelift, but the changes are mostly aimed at efciency and nudging the car ever closer to autonomy.

Of course, a car like this is about the big-mileage waft. Ahead of me at dusk is a 160-mile drive home. The big Merc simply evaporates distance. Awesome.