Woah! The Mercedes S-Class has had some major mid-life surgery

No generation of Mercedes S-Class has ever had such a major mid-life facelift as this. It's not just about the face, wherein departing design chief Gorden Wagener's preferred embiggening of grilles and ensparkliment of LEDs reach their apogee. The engineering has had a significant go-over as well. If they're positive changes, that's quite something because the S-Class was already the best saloon in the world.

The new grille visually smears into the headlamps. Those lamps themselves deliver more fine-tuned illumination according to the conditions, and then the grille is spangled with Mercedes stars. In most countries you can have an illuminated bonnet emblem too. Not in the UK, since circles in the middle of the front-end are banned because of possible confusion with a motorbike.

The car's whole electrical operating system is new. It's the same basic system as introduced in the electric CLA. That's a rare example of trickle-up at Mercedes – usually the S-Class gets new tech first. We've found the CLA's interface to be easy to operate and graphically satisfying.

The new OS's connected systems also allow more refined ADAS, and indeed, in China, something resembling autonomous driving. That too is prevented elsewhere by the laws.

More useful in Britain is that the adaptive air suspension, standard fit, sends a note to the Mercedes cloud when you hit a pothole or big dip or crest. Then the next new S-Class to drive down that road – or you when you pass that way again – will have its damping set-up to best cope with the disturbance beneath.

In other chassis news, the UK-spec S-Class will now have four-wheel steering as standard.

The engines have been marginally tweaked for urge and refinement, but the basic range is likely, when it goes on sale around March, to be as before. In the UK it's all straight-sixes: the diesels will be S350 and 4WD S450d, then petrol 4WD S500, and PHEVs S450e and 4WD S580e. The PHEV ones have an electric range of around 60 miles.

For a V8 you need to wait for the AMG, and for a V12 the Maybach or, if you think someone really doesn't like you, the armoured one.

The cabin has a new dash. To nobody's great surprise the screens are bigger, squeezing the air vents into a long, slim strip. So they're now electrically directed, which we find very annoying in other cars but maybe the Mercedes auto system gets it right.

More on the climate. Mercedes doesn't want you wearing a bulky coat as it reduces the effectiveness of the seat belts in a crash. So instead the belt itself is heated, to keep your chest and belly toasty while the heated seat and steering wheel takes care of your back, bum and hands.

UK prices will no doubt edge upwards. Even now there's no UK S-Class below £100,000, partly because we get only the LWB version.