Archived Comparison
From the August 1995 Issue of Car and Driver
As the decimal point ka-chunks over to six figures on the window sticker—in this day of megadeals and gigabytes, $100,000 qualifies as one biggabuck—the gasp you hear is not from us. Nobody here cringes at the prospect of great cars. When three of the world's top automakers proffer four-doors at the one-biggabuck price point (close enough, after gas-guzzler and luxury taxes), we break out the crate of fresh superlatives we've been saving for that special occasion. This is a celebration of motoring excellence.
Fine cars, of course, take shape around fine engines. In this regard, BMW, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz have earned places at the exclusive head table—each offers a V-12. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the V-12 Mercedes S600 rounds off to $150,000 (these days, robber barons can't get ahead either). To get down to one biggabuck, we had to trim our aspirations back to the S500, a dimensionally similar sedan propelled by a 32-valve 5.0-liter V-8. At $101,726 as tested, this lesser Mercedes still weighed in at the heaviest price.
The other two contestants have V-12 power. The BMW 750iL stands at the summit of the new 7-series line introduced last fall. BMW's definition of luxury is evolving more and more toward technology (another way to say "buttons on the dashboard labeled with inscrutable acronyms"). Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will be impressed (entertained too) for only $95,492 as tested.
The Jaguar XJ12 is a variation on the familiar XJ6, upgraded with a 6.0-liter V-12 and other details. While the world's automakers constantly adjust their images in hopes of attracting new buyers, Jaguar just keeps doing what it has always done with wood and leather, with shapes and shadows. At $92,688 out the door, the XJ12 is the only one of the group that could sell itself without a test drive.
As luxury cars reach for new capabilities, they leave behind the days when a guy who could operate one of them could operate them all. Now the radios, climate controls, door locks, and so forth are as different as WordPerfect and XyWrite, and first-timers in each keep calling out, "Hey, why is this thing beeping?" The Jaguar's remote door locks are a good example—the first push of the round button unlocks the driver's door, the second push unlocks the rest of the doors, the third unlocks the trunk; pressing and holding for a few seconds triggers the panic mode. This is simple, effective, and right in step with today's computer logic, but every family member will have to go to school on it.
The quest for excellence is a noble reach; we humans might flatter ourselves that it's the key trait that lifts us above the animals. Yet excellence is elusive—so often we grab for it and pull back a handful of decadence instead.
What constitutes excellence in an automobile? What's that noise? Oh, yeah, that's the Pomposity Alert. Let's back away from the philosophic bog here and just say, "Trust us, excellence may defy a one-sentence description, but we can distinguish it from decadence every time, and none of the latter will slip past us as we review the achievements in this class of motoring luxury liners."
