2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series: Ultraluxury for Two
Maybach aims to transform the Mercedes-AMG SL63 sports car into a luxury grand tourer with an unmistakable paint scheme and numerous stylistic and mechanical changes.
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Mercedes-Maybach
Mercedes-Benz’s Mercedes-Maybach division is venturing into the two-seater realm with an ultraluxury version of the Mercedes-AMG SL63 roadster named the Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series.
The Maybach makeover encompasses exterior styling revisions, exclusive paint schemes, and tweaks to the interior. It retains the AMG SL63’s 577-hp 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, nine-speed automatic, and all-wheel-drive system, but the company says it has implemented changes that make the roadster quieter and smoother-riding.
The 2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL680 has a starting price of $226,050.
UPDATE 8/12/2025: Almost a year after Mercedes revealed the Maybach SL680 Monogram Series during Monterey Car Week, the luxury automaker has finally said how much the fanciest version of the Mercedes-AMG SL63 roadster will cost. (Drum roll, please.) The SL680 has a starting price of $226,050.
Mercedes-Benz’s Maybach subbrand is all about more. More luxury, more power, more presence, and more prestige—more luxe than you can get even in Mercedes’s standard models.
The vehicles that currently wear the Maybach badge—special versions of the S-class sedan, GLS SUV, and EQS EV SUV—are all size-large chauffeur-ready carriages. Think Rolls-Royce and Bentley. With its newest model, however, the 2026 SL680 Monogram Series, Maybach is going small—well, less big—with an ultraluxury version of the two-seat Mercedes-AMG SL63 sports car. If you wanted to be chauffeured in this car, you’d be sitting in the passenger’s seat next to your driver. Not cool!
Monterey Car Week Debut
Maybach has revealed the new softtop roadster during Monterey Car Week, 36 hours before the kickoff of the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance—an appropriate venue if there ever was one for a car aimed at the uppermost crust of upper-class car buyers. It will arrive in the U.S. in the summer of 2025 as a 2026 model. Maybach chief design officer Gorden Wagener said the goal was the same as with all the other Maybach models: to create the most luxurious and sophisticated version of the standard Mercedes on which it’s based.
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Mercedes-Maybach
Chasing that goal required changes both above and below the AMG SL’s voluptuous skin. The Maybach version gets restyled front and rear bumper covers, a new grille, and special 21-inch Maybach wheels, plus chrome trim on the rocker panels and windshield surround. The hood is now adorned with a chrome spear down its centerline, along with a Mercedes three-pointed-star standup hood ornament on the nose. Small, graceful fairings added to the hard tonneau cover aft of the front seats recall the streamlined headrests of 1950s race cars.
Two-Tone Paint and a Logo-Pattern Top
The biggest changes to the look are the Maybach-exclusive paint scheme and the softtop treatment. For the first model year, Wagener says that the Maybach SL will come in only two color combinations, called Red Ambience (metallic red) and White Ambience (bright white). Both get a black hood, and both are fitted with a white leather interior.
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Mercedes-Maybach
Adding even more visual differentiation from standard SLs is the new convertible top, on which the Maybach logo is imprinted dozens of times to create a pattern—much like that on a Louis Vuitton handbag. If that’s not enough, for an extra charge, that same pattern can be imprinted onto the hood.
In an attempt to transform the hard-edged 577-hp SL63 from sports car to luxury grand tourer, Maybach has made several hardware changes. The company says it has added extensive sound deadening to quiet the cabin, bolted on a new quieter exhaust system to subdue the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8’s thunder, recalibrated the suspension to soften the ride, and retuned the engine mounts, likely to reduce noise, vibration, and harshness.
The seats were given additional padding to go along with their new Maybach sew pattern. The AMG SL63’s nine-speed automatic and all-wheel drive system are retained. Not that we expect buyers to care, but the Maybach upgrades have added roughly 400 pounds to the 4300-pound standard SL63, according to Mercedes.
How convincing a transformation this turns out to be won’t be known until we can slide behind the two-tone steering wheel and into the plush driver’s seat about a year from now.
But one thing about the Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series roadster is already known: it’ll be expensive. Prices won’t be announced until closer to the car’s on-sale date, but with the current Mercedes-AMG SL63 starting at $188,050, the Maybach version could roll into the neighborhood of $250,000. That alone will make it exclusive.
This story was originally published on Aug. 16, 2024.
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Rich Ceppos
Director, Buyer’s Guide
Rich Ceppos has evaluated automobiles and automotive technology during a career that has encompassed 10 years at General Motors, two stints at Car and Driver totaling 20 years, and thousands of miles logged in racing cars. He was in music school when he realized what he really wanted to do in life and, somehow, it’s worked out. In between his two C/D postings he served as executive editor of Automobile Magazine; was an executive vice president at Campbell Marketing & Communications; worked in GM’s product-development area; and became publisher of Autoweek. He has raced continuously since college, held SCCA and IMSA pro racing licenses, and has competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona. He currently ministers to a 1999 Miata, and he appreciates that none of his younger colleagues have yet uttered “Okay, Boomer” when he tells one of his stories about the crazy old days at C/D.
