IT IS time to surrender to the inevitable. As the door of the Maybach 62 closes with a barely audible power-assisted sigh, I sink back on to a bed of soft leather, reach for a silver goblet of champagne and become vaguely aware of the mellifluous sound of a huge engine stirring into life somewhere in the far away that is the front of the car.

This is life according to Maybach, indisputably one of the world’s greatest cars. By now my surrender is total as luxury, exclusivity and the whole hedonistic business of becoming an out-and-out plutocrat permeate my being.

At no time during a couple of decades of meeting wheeled wonders across the world have I ever been invited to test a new car while reclining at full stretch on a back seat that is like something out of the first class cabin of a long-haul airliner — only better. So I put aside the ordinary world that most of us inhabit, and think of, well, to be absolutely frank — money.

A curtained rear window softens the winter sunshine, Diana Krall entertains with DVD clarity on twin screens, Dieter, my chauffeur, fluidly guides 2.9 tons of 185 mph, £281,380, more than 20 feet long, 5.5-litre, twin-turbo V12 leviathan that is the Maybach 62, across northern Germany — and Sabine, my PA, runs through my engagements for the next couple of days.

These will include breakfast aboard the multimillion-pound luxury yacht, Xenia, whose two, 3480hp engines will propel it from my hotel to the Deutsche Airbus landing stage at Hamburg airport to step into a nine-seat Canadair Challenger executive jet to fly to Stuttgart, where another version of the Maybach, the shorter wheelbase 57 of under 19 feet and a mere £243,780, will be ready and waiting and then . . .

“OK,” I yawn, “That’s enough stress. I’ll give it all a go.”

The Maybach is now DaimlerChrysler’s flagship brand, far above anything that sister company Mercedes-Benz can offer with its funny little S-class. And so exclusive is the Maybach, that it is not for the likes of mere millionaires.

Professor Jürgen Hubbert, the Maybach and Mercedes-Benz boss, tells me over lunch (gourmet, perfect) at the company’s modestly named Centre of Excellence that the enormous 62, at least, is probably for multimillionaires or those heading multinational companies. Also, although, he does not say so, perhaps owners of small countries.

Why is the Maybach 62 so special apart from the price? Because it is a super-quality car that can provide everything from towering performance (the most powerful production car engine in the world) to twin flagpoles on the front wings. Yet it is, depending on your aesthetic point of view and despite its size, either bland and matronly or just brilliantly understated.

About 60 or so are due to come to the UK during the next 12 months as Maybach ramps production up to 1,000 a year. A third of the total build is expected to be the 62 with its near-bedroom experience. But I cannot see the point of the shorter but mechanically identical 57, except that it is handier, more likely to be driven by its owner and, of course, very costly.

The 57, like the 62, is sensationally quick, cruising for mile after mile on the autobahn at more than 150mph, its 550bhp and 900Nm of torque wafting it away from any traffic that has the temerity to try to fill the rear-view mirrors, let alone getting in its way, accelerating from 0-62mph in 5.2 seconds. Although top speed of both Maybachs is limited to about 155 mph, Hubbert says tests have been made at speeds up to 185 mph. Even so, it feels no more than a glorified S-class, whereas the 62 is something else altogether, with that wonderful leg-stretching multi-adjustable rear seat.

Apart from its length, which makes for a bit of a truck-driver approach to manoeuvring, the 62 proved easy to handle. But it is really a job for a smooth-driving professional,such as Dieter, with the owner stretched out in the back, cruising at 120mph, never worrying about an average 17.8mpg, tapping into the internet, playing with the optional (£10,000) electro-luminescent roof — that can, at the touch of a button be clear, opaque or glow at night — or going for total privacy by raising the front/rear partition (£20,000).

Options are few, but ground gold paint at £1,500 a litre sounds a bargain. It would take ten litres to coat the car. I wonder who will be the first buyer to choose that modest little touch?

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