#luxury

You read here how 2019 was a buoyant year for corporate siblings Hyundai and Kia; both brands posted full-year sales gains, and both can thank new, large crossover vehicles for the added volume. The higher prices demanded by the Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride will certainly be appreciated by the automakers’ beancounters, too.

Of the two midsizers, one possesses an enhanced level of gravitas. A little more panache and youth appeal. And it’s no secret which one we’re referring to — which is why an industry rumor has us thinking that an uplevel version is something worth pursuing.

We continued the QOTD sedan series last week, with 2020’s best all-round small luxury sedans. Today we head up a size class and focus on luxurious midsizers. As you might expect, the field of contenders shrinks a bit this time.

Reflecting on the numerous sedans which passed away at the end of the 2019 model year, we recently asked you to pick the best all-round offerings in sizes small, medium, and large. In each size grouping, we excluded premium and luxury offerings, and each time someone complained that the list lacked premium offerings.

It’s 2020 now, and as always at TTAC we aim to please: Today we select the best sedans from premium and luxury marques. Small cars are up first.

Before long, there’ll be hip-hop songs written about what went on in the back of Mercedes-Maybach’s largest offering.

Revealed Thursday, the Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 4Matic is essentially a Mercedes-Benz GLS that’s been to finishing school, put on airs, and is now ready to float above the riff-raff at a cruising altitude of 40,000 feet, sipping on champagne all the way. The automaker provides the silver flutes for just such a drinking experience, as well as the (three-bottle) fridge.

Interestingly, Mercedes-Maybach’s product boss implied that the vehicle’s customers might be used to viewing the world from such a lofty height.

After years of rumors and real-world development, Aston Martin has finally joined the SUV crew. Among its members these days? Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lamborghini, and Jaguar, with the likes of Lotus and Ferrari eager to join this high-riding posse of automotive misfits.

The DBX is a two-row utility vehicle boasting a profile you can find elsewhere in the industry and an engine sourced from the Germans. It’s a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 borrowed from AMG, and it motivates this largest-ever Aston with 542 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque. Price? If you need to ask, you cannot afford.

No longer the gaudy marque seen in countless hip hop videos in the early 2000s, Maybach is now joined at the hip to Mercedes-Benz, offering lux-ified variants of the S-Class sedan under the Mercedes-Maybach sub-brand. Soon, that super sedan will have a higher-riding sibling, as even fabulously wealthy people sometimes need venture off the beaten track.

Fact is, those buyers have more choice than ever in choosing a more capable steed. Maserati has the Levante, Bentley has the Bentayga, and Rolls-Royce now has the Cullinan (truly a diamond in the rough). It’s time for a Mercedes-Maybach GLS.

Not many of you will, of course, and not just because the Lincoln Continental Coach Door Edition now sells for more than $115,000. There’s too few of them, you see.

Last year’s surprise run of coachbuilt, suicide-doored Continentals sold out in 48 hours and totalled just 80 vehicles. For 2020, the fabulously expensive long-wheelbase Conti stages what might be its last appearance, offering a greater likelihood of scoring a buy.

With Europe quickly going the Greta route, stately sedans with eight- and 12-cylinder engines are an endangered species. Actually, sedans as a whole fit that bill, and increasingly stringent emissions regulations aren’t making the task of developing and selling these vehicles any easier.

With this in mind, BMW seems to have a solution for the 7 Series’ continued viability: offer it in a fully electric variant, with range to match its status.

Big, Detroit-made Malaise Era personal luxury coupes still keep showing up in the big self-service wrecking yards, more than 35 years after the last one rolled off the assembly line. Yes, the diminished-expectations Mark VI, the “What Oil Crisis?” Mark V, and the rococo Mark IV— examples of each of these will appear in your local U-Wrench yard from time to time.

Here’s a worn-out Mark IV from the year of Nixon’s resignation and Haile Selassie’s banishment from his throne in a lowly Beetle, now awaiting The Crusher in a Denver yard.

Bentley has one. Rolls-Royce has one, too. Lamborghini has one, and so does Maserati. The idea that a utility vehicle should be off-limits to builders of traditional passenger cars went out the window around the time Jaguar unveiled its second crossover.

Automakers everywhere are future-proofing themselves with the added cushion of a popular, high-margin CUV. It’s the equivalent of moving money out of stocks and into gold in the face of a looming economic downturn. So why not Bugatti, maker of the biggest-bucks, biggest-horsepower vehicles on earth?

Maserati promises it will steer clear of widespread electrification. And yet, it’s unclear whether this is part of a bold corporate strategy that sees electrification as the less-promising path forward, or simply the result of the brand’s current financial situation.

Regardless, the firm’s North American leader, Al Gardner, says it’s not in the cards. While Maserati fully intends to insert more plug-in vehicles and hybrids into its lineup by 2022, it vows to stop short of killing the internal combustion engine. Of course, we know that’s a promise no automaker can expect to keep indefinitely. All it takes is one important change in management to readjust a brand’s corporate trajectory, but Maserati appears safe from total electrification for the time being.

Daimler, maker of top-end Mercedes-Maybach automobiles, is on the hot seat after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was spotted scooting around in brand new armored limos at recent international summits.

Sales of luxury automobiles to the despotic regime are banned under a UN Security Council resolution passed in 2013, and Daimler does not count it as one of its customers. Still, the country’s leader travels in uncompromising Germanic style.

Forget Teslas and Black Label Lincolns and the upper strata of truckdom — the most expensive vehicle produced in North America will soon be a German offering with an MSRP about 100 grand higher than its domestic neighbors.

An American production site for this vehicle is appropriate, however, as it’s an SUV; the first offered by the Mercedes-Maybach sub-brand.

Americans gain two new domestic midsizers for the 2020 model year, and both of the premium crossover rivals take a different approach in how they propel their human cargo.

The Cadillac XT6, which debuted in Detroit in January and hits dealers this summer, adopts front-drive architecture; the 2020 Lincoln Aviator goes a different route, donning Ford’s rear-drive CD6 platform. It’s V6 power only for both, though Lincoln will slap on a potent plug-in hybrid system for added power and expense.

While pricing lines up closely on the bottom end, Lincoln has the edge.

Customers won’t get a chance to buy an Audi E-tron SUV until next year, but, if money’s tight, they might want to hold off for a while. The German brand’s first electric utility vehicle (seen above) arrives in the second quarter of 2019, carrying a base price of $74,800 — at least once the launch editions clear out. More E-trons will follow, including a Sportback version of the SUV and a top-flight GT sports sedan.

Green, but still requiring plenty of green to plunk one in your driveway. Audi apparently has a solution for budget-minded premium EV shoppers, and it plans to make it happen with help from Volkswagen.