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Unfortunately, because it's the obvious choice, every bugger's got one. Come out of a fancy London party and there is a row of chauffeur-driven S-Classes that stretches to Luton. So I'm afraid if you buy one, everyone will assume you've rented it. Or that you can only make ends meet by moonlighting for Madonna, and Ant and Lard.

BMW 7-Series? In many ways, this is an obvious rival for the Mercedes but something went wrong in the design stage and it's easy to see why. The engineers had been told to build a large, comfortable car for top-notch businessmen who just want to waft home after a hard day's lunch.

But, this being BMW, the designers couldn't help themselves. They built the large comfortable car and then they took it to the Nürburgring where they decided it needed fat tyres which sit on the rims like licks of paint, and suspension with the give of a table. The result is a good car to drive, if you're 18, but since the typical 7-Series customer isn't, it misses the mark by a margin not seen since I last attempted to kick a penalty.

This brings us on to the A8 which has the same problem. Audi has shown with the RS4 and the R8 that it now understands suspension but when the A8 was on the drawing board, plainly, they didn't. So it jiggles.

And so, having dismissed most of the Germans we move south to Italy where we find the new Maserati Quattroporte. My God, this is a good-looking car. But it's not quite handsome enough to overcome the faults.

To begin with, it was available only with a hopeless flappy paddle 'box that just didn't work. So now they've fitted an auto. And that doesn't work either. Not since the Escort XR3i Cabrio have I driven anything that feels so... flobbery.

Sure, you would put up with small problems to have a car that looked like this, in the same way you'd put up with some small problems if Angelina Jolie decided one day that she'd had enough of Brad and fancied being married to you. But if one day you came home and found her doing something mad, like cleaning the cooker with her tampons, you'd leave.

Obviously, the Rolls-Royce Phantom is an easy escape route, but it costs a quarter of a million pounds. And I can't take the Bentley Flying Spur seriously. It looks far too much like a Rover 75.

If it were me, I'd have either the Jaguar XJR or a VW Phaeton, but I quite understand why you would cross a continent to avoid both of them. When you step into a Jag, it feels like you've inadvertently stepped into 1954 and the VW is more anonymous than a LibDem leadership race.

And so, eventually, we arrive at the door of the Lexus LS600h. In many ways, it is even more forgettable than the Phaeton. You could easily buy one and get home to find you already have one in the garage. But the toys - wow! It'll even self park, if you have a month or two to read the instruction book. And you're young enough to understand it - i.e. you're 12.

It is also extremely quiet, fast and by all accounts, built to an even higher standard than the Mercedes. But the best thing is that little "h". This means that buried deep in the car's underbelly, it has a hybrid drive system.

You don't know it's there. It never makes itself felt. But it means you can sail right past Uncle Ken's congestion cameras without bothering to pay. And that is taking the piss.

No really. There's something sanctimonious about a hybrid Prius which you buy exclusively to show the world that you're, like, 'green', man. But with the Lexus, you are buying a large luxury saloon that chews fuel and consumes whole housing estates when you turn it on. Not paying the congestion charge is a side effect.

In other words, you're playing the system. Beating bullies at their own game. It's not perfect, but it did something that's rare in the world of luxury saloons. It brought a smile to my face.