Best luxury cars 2025

Best for: imperiousness

The Range Rover seems utterly bulletproof. We don’t mean literally — though there genuinely are some actually bulletproof Range Rovers driving discreetly around — but in terms of its image. A big, thirsty, posh SUV should be getting no end of online and on-street hate, but the Range Rover’s image seems to sail above such concerns.

It’s been assaulted by alternatives from BMW, Mercedes, Audi, even Bentley and Rolls-Royce, yet the Range Rover’s sales remain strong. It’s the kind of unimpeachable image and cachet that most other car companies would sell their granny to get.

Is it justified? Pretty much, yes. We all know about Land Rover’s reliability reputation, but the repeat customer loyalty for the Range Rover says either that it’s not as big an issue as everyone thinks, or that owners just don’t care. There is, of course, internal competition from the slightly smaller, slightly racier Range Rover Sport, but the big, ‘proper’ Range Rover still has the sort of haughty imperiousness that leaves the Sport trailing. The Sport is driven by footballers done good. The Range Rover is driven by the person that owns the football club.

Recently updated, the two key plug-in hybrid models enjoy 75 miles of electric only range, while their six-cylinder petrol engines are surprisingly frugal on a longer motorway run. You can, of course, instead have mild hybrid diesel power, or you can go all-out and get the magnificent petrol V8 turbo (which actually borrows its engine from BMW).

All Range Rovers are soft and squidgy to drive, but with more precision behind the marshmallow feeling than you’d expect. Equally, all are ridiculously talented when it comes to mud, mountains, and wet fields, and where else are you going to find a car this luxurious that can tow 3,500kg? We just wish Land Rover would bring back some of the dashboard buttons.

Best for: your highness

Is the big Bentley saloon a bit too bling? The Rolls-Royce Ghost looks most at home on the carefully raked gravel driveway of a stately home, but the Bentley arguably looks best on Rodeo Drive, or rounding the corner at the Casino in Monaco. It’s certainly very bling-bling with that huge chrome grille, and the slightly chintzy headlamps, which are meant to remind you of pre-war Bentleys.

Inside, you won’t really care if it’s all a touch nouveau riche, as the sheer quality of the wood, leather, and chrome on display is simply staggering. Every surface is polished and buffed to within an inch of its life, and the Flying Spur is hugely spacious — if you know any professional basketball players, offer them a lift in the back seat. They’ll not be disappointed.

As with the Continental GT, there’s now a choice of two plug-in hybrid V8 turbo petrol engines, so you can choose from a ‘basic’ version with just the 671hp on offer, or the Ultra model, which has 771hp, and which you can only have in the Speed and Mulliner models.

All of them have a 50-odd-mile electric range on a full charge, and all of them are incredibly fast in a straight line. Not bad around corners, either, although you have to be aware of the sheer size and weight you’re throwing around. There’s a surprisingly small boot, too — maybe Bentley owners just have their luggage sent on ahead?

Best for: quietly running the show

When you see a Mercedes S-Class on the road, you’re as likely to assume that it’s being driven by an airport chauffeur as it is a captain of industry, or a major celebrity. True, the airport shuttle people (and indeed, many of the celebs) have made the move to the Mercedes V-Class van, but the S-Class is still a familiar sight, loitering at the pickup point outside Heathrow.

That ubiquity is, in some ways, the S-Class’ biggest asset. All eyes are drawn to the likes of a Bentley or a Rolls or a massive BMW i7, but the S-Class glides past unnoticed. Which is exactly how many truly wealthy people prefer it — real wealth doesn’t shout; it whispers.

The S-Class whispers too, especially the S450e and S580 plug-in hybrids, with their 67-mile electric range – though the also-plug-in-hybrid AMG S 63 doesn’t whisper very much. Not just because it only has a 19-mile electric range, but because its mighty 612hp V8 bellows its intent.

You can still have more normal petrol and diesel models of course, and while the impact of the cabin’s styling has been diluted because every other Mercedes model has copied it, there’s no question that the Big S gets an extra-thick sheen of quality. It’s also quite brilliant to drive — isolating you from bad roads, but cornering with vim when you need it to. Others might be all show, but the S-Class runs the show.

Best for: shocking the neighbours

There’s probably no car that’s as ‘Marmite’ as the BMW i7 when it comes to styling. You will either immediately get what it’s trying to do (largely; appeal to buyers in the Gulf, China, and west coast USA) or you’ll recoil in horror and shield your children’s eyes. Both responses are valid.

The i7, it must be said, won’t be winning any beauty contests, and with the optional two-tone paint, it looks almost like a cartoonist’s idea of a big, expensive luxury car. It has an appeal all of its own, let’s say. Things are much better inside. The big screens which dominate the dashboard are actually quite good to use — although the standard plea for more proper buttons applies here too — but some of the on-screen graphics look a touch cheap and PlayStation-y for a car costing this much.

Overall quality is wonderful though, and the back seats are fantastically comforting on a long journey. There’s even the option of a reclining airline-style ‘Club Class’ seat.

The only downside is that the i7 doesn’t have especially good real-world range. In spite of a 107kWh battery, it’ll struggle to put more than 250 motorway miles between charges, although in fairness that does improve at lower speeds. It’s a softer 7 Series than we’ve been used to as well, more comfort-oriented, although still capable of feeling (mostly) like a proper BMW in the corners when you want it to.

Best for: trying something different

Lotus doesn’t make luxury cars. Lotus makes funny little plastic sports cars in a field in Norfolk, which are great to drive but which don’t have the solidity of a Porsche nor the cachet of a Ferrari. Wrong! Well, largely wrong — Lotus still does make sports cars in a field in Norfolk, but being as it’s now owned by a huge Chinese company (Geely, which also owns Volvo and Polestar) Lotus has been branching out, and the Emeya is most definitely a luxury car.

A very, very fast luxury car, thanks to twin electric motors that can produce as much as 905hp, which will fling this wedge-shaped luxury saloon to 62mph in just 2.8 seconds. In spite of that low shape, and Lamborghini-esque styling at the front, the Emeya is also hugely roomy for those in the back, with the (expensive) option of a four-seat layout, with a massive rear console and armrest that features its own touchscreen. Thanks to electric power it’s also very quiet back there, so is this the first Lotus in which it’s better to be driven than to drive?

Not quite — the Emeya is still exceptionally good to drive, with steering and balance that could only come from Lotus, albeit at a much higher weight point than any previous Lotus. The range is an issue, though — Lotus promises 379 miles, but you’ll be lucky to even get close to 300 miles on one charge, even in the lower-powered 603hp version.

Best for: the ultimate bling

The Mercedes G-Wagen, as it was, had humble beginnings. Designed for, but partly rejected by, the German army, the G-Wagen was launched as a rival to the Land Rover Defender and Range Rover in 1979.

We’ve come a long way, baby. The modern AMG G 63 is about as far as you can get from that simple, rugged, original G-Wagen with its cloth seats and locking diffs, while still technically being the same vehicle. This G 63 is one of the most expensive cars you can buy from a regular car dealership, topping £200,000 even before options, and powered by a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine producing 605hp (the original 230G had just 91hp!).

It’s massive, it’s in your face, and being an AMG the G 63 is stupidly fast and well-poised for something with the bulk and aerodynamics of a small barn, while the original G-Wagen bit means that even on road-biased tyres, this big 4x4 can seriously tackle the rough stuff. There’s a nigh-impassable mountain section just behind the factory on which the G’s engineers test all this stuff.

The height, size, and weight count against the G on a twisty road, but there’s a certain amount of fun in coping with how it corners, but you’ll never not be disappointed with how little space there actually is inside that huge body. There’s no questioning the quality, but you’d have to wonder how they managed to make it so small.

Still, get past the cost, the thirst, and the inefficient packaging, and this is an all-time superstar car.

Best for: silent running

For a car that looks a bit like a melted bar of soap, the big Mercedes EQS SUV sure does cost a lot. In fact, you can spend the guts of a quarter of a million pounds on an EQS SUV, and that’s without even dipping into Mercedes’ extensive ‘Manufaktur’ bespoke options service.

Why so expensive? Well, in fairness, there are much more affordable EQS SUV models than the top spec, so it’s the Maybach EQS SUV 680 model that we’re talking about here, and then in absolute range-topping ‘First Class Night Series’ form. For that you get a huge 118kWh battery, two electric motors with a combined 658hp, and a potential 368-mile range.

That range will fritter away quickly if you start using the colossal power of those motors much, so the best thing to do is to cruise in blissful silence, being as this is one of the most fantastically refined cars you can drive.

Better yet, as many as six of your mates can come along for the spin, and there’s a massive 880-litre boot for all the stuff you need to carry (440 litres with all the seats in use).

The EQS SUV is also big and heavy, and very softly sprung, so while you’re enjoying the featherbed comfort of the seats, you’re also trying to coax it around corners a bit. It’s no driver’s car, that’s for sure.

Best for: taking on the Range Rover

The Mercedes GLS is a bit of a mixed bag of a car. On the one hand, it’s a massive, hugely comfortable, seats-for-seven SUV with one of the most desirable badges in the car world, and a super-luxury Maybach model that pushes the price above £200,000 without even trying.

On the other hand… This is a properly enormous car, with even tall people barely able to see over the top of the bonnet if you’re standing next to the GLS, riding high on its huge 23-inch wheels. That bigness makes it a chore on tight, congested British streets, even if the all-round cameras and surprisingly tight turning circle (it has rear-wheel steering) make things a bit easier. It really needs the wide-open spaces of Palm Springs, or Dubai, where this level of bling is a touch more acceptable.

A BMW X7 — darned near equally big — is better to drive on twisty roads, but the GLS has the edge in terms of comfort for the driver and passenger, and it’s hard not to be impressed by the massive interior. However, the quality of that cabin isn’t quite becoming of a car with a high six-figure price tag, and there are just too many cheap-looking and cheap-feeling plastics around the place. An object lesson in too much not being just enough; it’s actually too much.

Best for: thrills

Okay, so a car with the words ‘Mercedes’ and ‘AMG’ and ‘Coupe’ in its name is never going to have a bargain price tag, but even so the price you can push this sleek, sexy coupe to will make you wince and draw in a sharp breath. It’s not that the AMG GT Coupe is out of line, pricing-wise, with the likes of the Porsche 911 Turbo nor the Aston Martin Vantage, it’s just that it’s a lot of money, no matter whose badge is on the bonnet.

Is it worth it? Well, just about. The top-spec AMG GT Coupe is a 63 E model, which actually is a plug-in hybrid, pumping out a fairly ridiculous 816hp, and able to hit 62mph from rest in just 2.8 seconds. That’s proper race-car performance (ignore the fig-leaf of the seven-mile electric range) and so maybe the hefty price tag is justified. Just be aware that you can add several extra numbers to that tag by dipping into Mercedes’ lengthy options and bespoking list — even at this level, not everything comes as standard.

Is the AMG GT brilliant to drive? In a word; yes — properly fast and properly poised, although the Porsche still has an edge when it comes to driver enjoyment, and the Mercedes has some entirely pointless rear seats. It is a very, very pretty car, though.

Best for: discretion

Most of the other cars on this list make something of a declaration when they pull up to the kerb. They’re big, brash, in-your-face, and they want you to know about it. By contrast, the Range Rover is none-more-British. It pulls up with quiet discretion, taps you gently on the shoulder, and asks you if you wouldn’t mind just opening the doors to the five-star hotel, there’s a good chap.

The Range Rover certainly isn’t small, nor would you necessarily call it a shrinking violet, but its exterior styling is more subtle and less shouty than some of the other expensive car options, and it has a sense of both classiness and classlessness about it. After all, it’s not every £200,000+ car that looks slightly better when it’s covered in mud. Nor very many millionaire’s conveyances which were originally designed to be able to carry a bale of hay or one adult sheep in the boot.

The best engine options are the P460e or P550e, with their handy 75-mile electric range, and the promise of decent fuel economy on a long run. However, this is the expensive car list, so you’ll not be wanting one of those. You’ll be wanting the Range Rover SV, with its fabulous 615hp twin-turbo V8 engine, its handcrafted cabin, and the special seats which have stereo speakers built into them, and the floor, for a full surround-sound 4D experience when the tunes are pumping. Debussy of course. Wouldn’t want to be brash, now would we?