The new Mercedes-Benz S-Class is production-ready. It's been polished, inspected, photographed and will make its world debut in Frankfurt this September. Mercedes has an entire factory dedicated to the new S-Class and with a promised short ramp-up time, Mercedes hopes to be flooding the US market in early (think January) 2006.

Mercedes has released official factory pictures of the new S-Class so the images are out there, hopefully getting to a few current customers before they decide to ditch their current S-Class in favor of a BMW 7-Series or an Audi A8. The photos show that the new S is, if nothing else, derivative of a few cars on the road today. First, there is the front that looks a bit Japanese to me - the Acura RL comes to mind. Then, of course, the rear is definitely a clone from sister luxo-barge the Maybach. Since I was driving behind a Maybach 62 today in the short cut from Wilshire to Santa Monica Blvd behind the Beverly Hilton, I had plenty of time to check out the rear end of a Maybach. The taillights do have an air of exclusivity with the frosted silver/white stripes. I'm sure they are very expensive to replace.

The interior is pure BMW 7-Series. There is even a center knob used as the controller for the car's computer and infotainment system. It sure looks like BMW's iDrive, but I'm betting the target for Mercedes to beat is the MMI (multi-media interface) system used in Audi's A6 and A8. The rear side view is also straight from the BMW design book with Chris Bangle angles and cuts. While the automotive journalist and BMW faithful (those who can't move on) complained, the rest of the luxury car industry quietly followed BMW's lead.

The center gear shift lever, an icon of Mercedes S-Class interiors for a few generations has been banished in favor of the lever system currently used in the new ML- and R-Class people wagons produced in Mercedes' Alabama plant. It's also a copy of the system BMW introduced three years ago in the 7. We are told that the Merc's system is better to the touch. I hope so.

The S-Class is marginally longer and wider than the current model. It will offer a dizzying array of techno-gadgets while trying to simplify others. Let's hope that Mercedes gets the electronics right from the very beginning. The brake-by-wire system installed in many Mercedes models in 2004 won't make its reappearance on the S-Class -- at least not yet. But we do get the company's new short-range radar system that applies the brakes when the car gets too close (you set the distance) to the car in front of you.

The last S-Class was an experiment in cost cutting. I didn't like it when it was introduced and while it's gotten better over the years, it's still not up to Mercedes S-Class standards. Some of the systems like the overly complicated COMAND system, confused electronic keys and the cheap plastics were hard to gloss over. Then there were the owner complaints about a plethora of electronic gremlins and other quality problems.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the Mercedes S-Class sedans exemplified the pinnacle of German engineering. The cars were well-crafted, elegant and symbolized the pride of post-war Germany. It took decades to establish the Mercedes three-pointed star as the benchmark for all other aspiring luxury car brands. BMW rose from the ashes of the War and shot Mercedes straight through the star! Over the last decade, the biggest German industrial company, Daimler-Benz AG has divested itself of most "extraneous" businesses, merged with damaged Chrysler and emerged as DaimlerChrysler AG, a weakened company, awash in red ink and recalls, with a tarnished global image -- and that same smart management group is still in control. Go figure?

Mercedes has to get this S-Class right. That means that the details have to be done right. The cost savings have to be invisible to the driver. Mercedes now has to benchmark Audi and BMW for interiors, Lexus for quality and reliability and BMW for its design lead. My how the mighty have fallen.

However, where I didn't see any hope six months to a year ago, Mercedes has rolled out some impressive products in the past six months. The CLS, ML, SLK and the all new R-Class are solid products with vastly improved interiors and more compelling exterior design. The engineers and designers seem to have listened to the multitude of customer complaints and, beginning with the CLS, the interiors have taken a dramatic upturn in quality. This is a very good trend because Mercedes needs to be playing in the same league as the brands chewing away at its customer base and market share. BMW and Audi aren't sitting still. Both keep raising the bar. And let's not forget the insidious encroachment of Lexus and to a lesser extent, Infiniti. The Lexus refrigerators keep recruiting customers to the cold side while the reinvigorated Infiniti brand has solid alternatives (G35, M35 and M45) aimed directly at Mercedes' C- and E-Class markets.

With all this competition, Mercedes needs the S-Class to be back at the top of the heap with the others scrambling to be as good as the S-Class. In an article about DCX and the new S-Class, the Wall Street Journal reported (11 July 2005) that 90% of the parts in the coming S-Class are new. In the car world, that's a staggering amount of new parts and content to assemble together into one big, expensive, complex car. I think the fact that the S-Class is really an all-new vehicle speaks to the inadequacy of the last model and the need to start with a clean slate.

But I continue to worry about the management at Mercedes. His royal highness, Chairman and CEO Jurgen Schrempp, has declared that the new S-Class will be the last Mercedes built new from "bumper to bumper". This sweeping statement is an "absolute" that no CEO should ever make.

Look, we all understand the necessities of platform and parts sharing in order to amortize costs and save money. It makes sense to do that. The key is not to fall into the GM trap of bottom up engineering where a Chevrolet can become a Cadillac with very little DNA manipulation. The best ideas and most sophisticated technology should originate at the top and then spread down to lesser models in order to increase the value of the vehicles, the brand image and achieve cost savings with economies of scale. There may be another time when Mercedes has to create an all-new vehicle. Hopefully Mr. Schrempp will no longer be with DCX.

I'm going to keep an open mind with my fingers crossed for Mercedes engineers to pull off a great new S-Class despite of the medaling from the cost accountants. Here in LA, where so few choices exist for the family sedan -- you know BMW 7, Mercedes S or maybe an A8 -- Mercedes has a chance to win back its former customers, retain current some current customers and possibly catch some BMW customers. While some customers have traded up to Bentley, the masses here still need a big German luxury sedan to lease every three years.