The interior remains a sensual delight, improved by new leather options, more real metal trim, and a larger iPad-sized COMAND touch screen. Benz has upped its interior game so much in the models released (or forthcoming) in the three years since this car was unveiled, it’s a nicer place to be than 90% of the world’s automotive interiors.

Mercedes has the first application of its new nine-speed automatic transmission—a box we expect to see chomping its way throughout the brand’s range—as well as another teaser introduction of its new 3.0 liter twin-turbo V-6.In actual use, the gearbox is somewhat difficult to differentiate from the excellent, and already toothy, seven-speed it replaces. Otherwise, it was as invisible and functional as a contemporary, premium hydrodynamic torque-converted automatic should be — seamless or slightly clippies, depending on whether you had it set in Comfort or Sport mode.

 The new engine is bigger news, sort of, in part because—as with its taunting exposure in recent overseas launches of the S-Class, the E-Class, and the C-Class—it remains somewhat unclear whether will be receiving it here in the States upon domestic introduction of the model. Like space tourism, or the end of Nicolas Cage’s career, it has been always imminent, but never arriving. When it does get here, which it will in some model or another (likely this fall), it will produce about 329 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque.