GARAŽA forum

This is the greatest driver’s seat ever installed into a passenger car. This is the seat all other seats should aspire to be. Can a seat aspire? In fact, yes, and the Mercedes S63 seat aspires to greatness. But that’s not all it does. This seat saves spines. I should know; I’ve spent eighteen hours in it over the last four days.


MERCEDES-BENZ
These active multicontour seats are basically infinitely adjustable. Every aspect of the seat’s shape is controlled through COMAND, sent to the seat’s 19 different air chambers, each of which have fine-tune adjustments. Lumbar support alone has three chambers, and is able to target a specific area of the back with pinpoint precision. The seat surface itself is like a really expensive hotel bed: soft on top, firm underneath. The (optional) red Connolly leather is gorgeous, soft, and supple, but also cleans easily, which I learned after a particularly dusty hike.

Heated and Cooled seats are nothing new, and higher end cars have had heated steering wheels for a while, but the S63 is the first car I’ve seen with heated inner door panels and a heated armrest. Combine that with the “Airscarf,” a system installed in the seatback that literally blows hot air on the back of your neck, and honestly, there’s nothing in the car left to warm up. They've now covered the entire interior in heating elements.

Then there’s the massage, which comes standard. There are six programs targeting different points on the back and thighs, two of which actually simulate hot stone massage by using extra heating elements on selective air bladders. Hot. Stone. Massage. The only negative thing I can say about this entire car is that you have to restart the massage seats every 15 minutes, which gets frustrating. I suspect you could call RennTech or Brabus, who could hack that for full-on operation. I would, since I’ve not spent a single minute in this vehicle without one massage or another going. I highly recommend programs 1, 3, and 6.