The Absurdity Index begins where a luxury car’s explanation becomes less convincing than the car itself. It is not a reliability ranking or a disguised list of bad purchases. Engineering excess, theatrical equipment, commercial miscalculation, and elaborate indifference to ordinary use can all raise the score. The numbers are judgments, not measurements, and a high score may be a recommendation to admire something rather than own it. Our control car supplies the necessary baseline: an extravagant development effort devoted to making extravagance seem unnecessary.
[Control] 0/10: Lexus LS400. Anhedonia as perfection.
The LS400 refuses to cooperate with the entertainment. Its conventional shape conceals a serious effort to make a large sedan quiet, smooth, and easy to live with. These are entirely reasonable objectives, achieved without a public display of mechanical distress. The absence of drama can feel like an absence of character, but that is the driver’s objection rather than a defect in the machine. The LS400 scores zero because its effort and its purpose point in the same direction. A control car that converts enormous development effort into an almost uneventful journey is inconveniently difficult to mock.
Lexus’ own project history counts 1,400 engineers alongside designers, technicians, and other contributors, not 4,000 engineers working alone. The result included a new aluminum V8 and an unusually resolved approach to noise and vibration. The famous champagne glass demonstration made a memorable advertisement for that work; it did not prove the car generated no vibration under every condition. The more interesting achievement was making an expensive engineering program disappear into an ordinary journey. A Rolex comparison works, provided the watch has declined to tell anyone what it cost.
Even the illuminated instruments support that disciplined purpose. They make information clear rather than staging a small technological event every time the ignition is switched on. For a driver seeking mechanical theater, the LS400 can seem almost aggressively correct. For a passenger trying to read, that may be the highest compliment available.
2/10: Mazda 929. Luxury witness protection.
The final American 929 is less rational in its relationship with the market than in its construction. Its broad C-pillars and soft curves give it a distinctive shape without the immediate identity of a Lexus, BMW, or Acura flagship. It asks the observer to notice how restrained it is, then provides very little reason for the observer to keep looking. This is anonymity pursued with enough care to become conspicuous to the few people paying attention.
It was not, however, a Japanese spaceship stripped of every interesting feature for America. The 1992 U.S. brochure offered a solar-powered ventilation system using cells in the sliding glass moonroof. Sunlight could help exhaust hot cabin air while the car sat parked. That is ventilation, not solar air conditioning, and it is a genuinely thoughtful luxury feature. The same brochure lists a 3.0-liter V6 and rear-wheel drive. Japanese Sentia specifications should not be used to award every U.S. car four-wheel steering, but nor should they be used to pretend Americans were denied the solar roof.
The score therefore comes from the awkwardness of the proposition, not a lack of engineering. The 929 could deliver comfort and a modestly futuristic appearance while making its owner explain why it existed between more familiar alternatives. Buying something understated is easy. Buying something so understated that even its good ideas require an introduction is a more specialized pleasure.
5/10: 1988–1994 BMW 750iL. The last outpost of rational extravagance. Beyond, there be dragons.
The E32 750iL escalated with considerably more confidence. Twelve cylinders provided both an engineering advantage and an instantly legible answer to the question of where the model sat in the range. The regular 7 Series supplied a restrained body; the V12 supplied the extravagance beneath it. This is excess with a coherent assignment: more effortless performance and a level of mechanical distinction that does not require a different car-shaped announcement.
The M70 was a purpose-built V12, not two complete straight-sixes welded together. Its bank-specific control arrangements made the architecture feel unusually elaborate, while the cabin could extend the excess in a more literal direction. The Highline refrigerator is a particularly clear example. Someone had already provided a perfectly effective means of reaching a restaurant; BMW then addressed the unacceptable interval before arrival. Rare equipment and conversions require their own build records, so the fridge need not drag a supposedly universal fax machine, second alternator, and powered writing desk into every Highline.
Five points recognize the doubling without pretending it had no benefit. A V12 can deliver a different kind of refinement from a six or an eight. What it cannot do is make every additional component disappear from the maintenance inventory. The E32 is still on the rational side of the border because the engine’s character supplies an answer proportionate to the complication. The refrigerator is an accessory to the argument, not its load-bearing member.
6.5/10: Mercedes W140 S-Class. Crossing the engineering Rubicon.
The W140 takes the same ambition and allows it to colonize the whole car. Additional side glazing addresses noise, closing assistance addresses the effort of shutting substantial doors, and the tall body addresses the passenger who would rather sit upright than participate in the designer’s pursuit of a lower roof. These are real benefits. Their cumulative effect is a luxury sedan in which an ordinary operation increasingly requires a subsystem.
The rear guide rods are the perfect miniature of the proposition. Make the car large and difficult to judge from the driver’s seat, then raise little markers from the rear corners to explain where it ends. There is nothing foolish about solving that problem. The absurdity lies in how often the solution becomes another mechanism that will eventually require attention. The expense is visible in the hardware: glass, latches, pumps, and actuators. It scores 6.5 because the refinement is persuasive and the supporting organization is enormous.
7.5/10: BMW M760i (2017–2022). When they start playing you off, but you have more to say so you start yelling.
The M760i adds a new contradiction: the machinery of effortless luxury given a conspicuous performance assignment. A V12 7 Series once justified itself chiefly by the manner in which it worked. The M760i also wanted the acceleration to be noticed. It belongs to the M Performance line, not to an imaginary full M7 program, but the lettering still changes the pitch. The quiet flagship has discovered the microphone.
BMW’s November 2016 U.S. announcement rated the 6.6-liter twin-turbo V12 at 601 horsepower and 590 lb-ft and quoted 3.6 seconds to 60 mph. Those are launch claims for that specification, not a composite assembled from different road tests. The engine’s family relationship to the first-generation Rolls-Royce Ghost does not make it identical to the later Ghost’s 6.75-liter unit. The impressive fact is simpler: BMW installed a twelve-cylinder engine and all-wheel drive in a large luxury sedan, then gave the result launch control.
The cabin could provide rear Executive Lounge seating, a removable control tablet, fragrance dispensing, and the illuminated Sky Lounge roof. The last of these lights patterned glass with LEDs; it is not Rolls-Royce’s fiber-optic headliner transplanted into a sunroof. The LED-lit glass still turns the roof into a piece of theater. A passenger could recline beneath manufactured atmosphere while the chassis deployed active steering to help the enormous assembly change direction. Comfort and performance are not incompatible, but the M760i makes their reconciliation look like a very well-funded committee meeting.
The B7 is the awkward witness. It demonstrates that an extremely fast, richly equipped 7 Series did not need 12 cylinders. That leaves the M760i defending the engine’s character and distinction rather than the bare availability of acceleration. It is a defensible position, but a more extravagant one than the early 750iL occupied. Buying the V12 because it is a V12 is perfectly intelligible. Pretending the alternatives could not get the job done is unnecessary.
That earns 7.5, with considerable affection. The M760i is not absurd because its performance is fake or its luxury useless. It is absurd because a remarkable amount of machinery goes into distinguishing an experience that was already exceptionally well served. Diminishing returns have seldom traveled so quickly.
8/10: Rolls-Royce Phantom III (1936–1939). What happens when you lock the accountants in the closet.
The Phantom III moves the complication into an earlier and more formal world. Its V12 carried twin ignition systems and 24 spark plugs; the car also provided onboard jacking and centralized chassis lubrication. Those devices had practical purposes, including maintaining a large, coachbuilt motorcar without treating every journey as a workshop expedition. They also multiplied the things whose correct operation mattered. Bodywork varied by commission, so one enormous limousine’s weight is not the weight of every Phantom III. The score comes from the complete arrangement: technical sophistication supporting bespoke formal transport, with upkeep that belongs to the same elevated standard as the upholstery. Goldfinger did not have to invent the mechanical extravagance. He merely added a different concern about the body material.
8/10: Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (1957–1960). Same closet, new accountants.
The first Eldorado Brougham made its separation from ordinary Cadillac production visible. A brushed stainless roof, center-opening doors, air suspension, and a cabin equipped with elaborate personal accessories turned a sedan into an exhibition of what Detroit could provide when ordinary pricing ceased to set the tone. The 1957 asking price was $13,074. That is sufficient evidence of ambition without inventing an audited loss on every car. The air suspension is especially instructive: maintaining ride height is useful, but the compressor, controls, and air system have to keep doing their jobs for the promised refinement to remain available. The vanity equipment is less ambiguous. Nobody accidentally buys magnetic drinking glasses for a purely practical automobile.
The later Brougham was a different execution, with Pininfarina bodywork rather than the earlier Detroit-built body. Its more restrained appearance did not convert low-volume international coachbuilding into an economical way of supplying an ordinary sedan. It earns the same eight points because it takes a plausible ambition, a uniquely distinguished Cadillac, and pursues it through a production arrangement that makes distinction expensive before the customer touches a switch. The first Brougham displayed the effort. The second sent some of it to Italy.
8/10: Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman (1974–1976). Leave those accountants alone.
The Talisman reaches the same score through upholstery rather than experimental suspension. In 1974, front and rear consoles divided a vast Fleetwood into four individual places. By 1975 the rear compartment had returned to a full-width seat, so the four-seat arrangement does not describe the entire run. Medici velour and the front console’s writing surface remain the essential evidence. This is a car large enough to carry a small committee, initially configured to ensure its members need not sit beside one another. It does not need a dubious price comparison with a Rolls-Royce to look excessive. The cabin has already upholstered the prosecution’s case.
9/10: Maybach 57/62. A committee-built monument to missing the point.
The 57 and 62 illustrate a different gap between engineering and explanation. They were large, highly developed luxury cars drawing on Mercedes technology, not W140s revived by attaching longer bumpers. Yet their visual relationship to the S-Class made the distinction they were supposed to establish surprisingly difficult to read. A customer could receive substantially more accommodation without receiving an equally convincing new identity. At this level, that is not a superficial problem. The identity is part of the product.
The Phantom VII makes the comparison cruel. Its upright grille, monumental proportions, and very deliberate separation from an ordinary executive sedan give it an immediately recognizable purpose. The Maybach’s rounded body and elaborate detailing look less resolved to me, particularly beside the Phantom’s architectural confidence. That is an aesthetic judgment, not proof that its reclining seats were less comfortable. The trouble is that a great seat cannot do all the work of a great luxury car.
Reclining rear accommodation, a partition on appropriately specified cars, individual climate control, and elaborate entertainment equipment create a genuine passenger environment. The twin-turbo V12 can move it without requiring the occupants to think about the size. The 57, 62, and later S versions differ in dimensions, equipment, and engine specification. Combining every option and the strongest engine into one imaginary standard Maybach would make the car easier to mock but less interesting to understand.
The difficult step was converting competent Mercedes-derived machinery into a separate marque with its own authority. A familiar Mercedes component can be excellent and still weaken the impression of something categorically different.
Nine points reflect that mismatch, not a claim that every used example is financially doomed. A later owner may find the combination appealing precisely because the original market position no longer has to be defended. The repair requirements, however, have not been discounted along with the sales pitch.
10/10: The Event Horizon. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. (A multi-axis approach to insanity.)
10/10: Rolls-Royce and Bentley SZ (Silver Spirit, Silver Spur, Mulsanne, Turbo R, et al.).
The SZ cars reach 10 through the coexistence of formal luxury and very specific mechanical obligations. Leather and carefully matched veneer supply the public experience; hydraulic braking and rear leveling hardware supply a less photogenic one. These are not Citroën DS suspensions concealed beneath British bodies. Steel coil springs remain part of the arrangement. The complexity still matters, because correct fluid, pressure, seals, and maintenance are conditions of continued operation rather than optional expressions of enthusiasm. The drawing room has a plant room.
The Turbo R adds a more entertaining contradiction by making the substantial sedan move with real urgency. Its turbocharged V8 and chassis development deserve more credit than a joke about attaching speed to a wardrobe. Meanwhile, bought-in components are not inherently shameful: a suitable General Motors automatic can be a very sensible engineering choice. The absurdity arises when an atmosphere of incomparable craftsmanship encourages an owner to forget that the object still contains aging machinery. It is possible to adore the walnut and remain entirely unromantic about the hydraulics. Ideally, both attitudes arrive before purchase.
10/10: Volkswagen Phaeton W12.
The Phaeton approaches the same score from the other side of the badge. Volkswagen developed an exceptionally ambitious luxury sedan and retained the roundel associated with its much less expensive cars. The W12 version combined a compact twelve-cylinder layout, all-wheel drive, air suspension, and elaborate climate control. Volkswagen’s original launch material described components designed for 300 km/h even though the production car was limited to 250 km/h. That is a design requirement, not permission to report a measured 186-mph production top speed. It also captures the spirit of the undertaking: additional engineering capacity whose existence mattered even where ordinary operation would never expose its limits.
The restrained body makes the effort difficult to explain at a glance. That can be the attraction for an informed owner and the weakness of the original sales proposition. The Phaeton scores 10 not because every Volkswagen dealer was incompetent or because its precise program losses are known here, but because the badge and the engineering ask the buyer to make almost opposite assumptions. It is a luxury car for someone who wants the machinery without the expected public signal, then discovers that the machinery still expects luxury car maintenance. The disguise works most effectively on the unprepared second owner.
10/10: Maybach Landaulet.
The Landaulet is more candid about its intended audience than the regular Maybach. The rear roof opens while the chauffeur remains under a fixed roof. Its central luxury is not merely fresh air, which can be obtained much more cheaply, but a particular arrangement of visibility: the passenger becomes the object of attention while the work of driving remains enclosed elsewhere.
Producing that arrangement requires more than cutting a hole behind the B-pillars. Maybach retained the side structure and reinforced it, provided a folding rear roof, and separated the two compartments. Those decisions preserve the formal silhouette while giving the rear occupants a different relationship to the surroundings. It is a very elaborate response to the question of which people in a car should be able to see the sky.
The compartment contrast completes the staging. The launch presentation used a dark chauffeur’s area and a pale rear cabin; a partition could provide privacy between them. The interesting contradiction is not that the passenger simultaneously seeks attention and privacy, since the two are directed toward different people. The partition, roof treatment, and contrasting compartments turn the passenger and chauffeur roles into physical architecture. One audience gets the performance. Another is paid to move it along.
That earns 10 without requiring a fictional monarchy or a claim that limousines have lost every purpose. The Landaulet can perform its chosen job extremely well. The score measures how far that job has traveled from ordinary transportation. A convertible generally opens a car to its surroundings. The Landaulet opens only the rear compartment, turning roof operation into a visible distinction between passenger and chauffeur.
Beyond that point, an extra mark requires an unusually accomplished contradiction.
11/10: Lancia Thema 8.32 by Ferrari. This one goes to 11.
The Thema 8.32 earns it by putting a Ferrari-derived V8 where an executive sedan’s front wheels have to accommodate both steering and propulsion. The restraint of the body makes the decision better, not saner. This is not a Ferrari pretending to be a family car; it is a family-shaped luxury car whose engine compartment has acquired a highly specialized alternative career.
The Thema belonged to the Type Four collaborative program alongside the Fiat Croma, Saab 9000, and Alfa Romeo 164. Shared development did not make the four bodies, chassis calibrations, or brands interchangeable. Calling the Lancia an Italianized Saab therefore misses the interesting act of independence. The common program supplied an opportunity for rationalization. Lancia used its version to house an engine from Ferrari.
The relevant ancestry is the 3.0-liter V8 of the 308 and Mondial Quattrovalvole, not the larger 328 engine. The Thema application changed the engine’s character for sedan use, including a cross-plane rather than Ferrari’s characteristic flat-plane crankshaft. That alters the balance and exhaust pulse arrangement; it is not merely the deletion of a dramatic noise. Lancia wanted a Ferrari connection without requiring an executive sedan to behave as though every trip were an approach to the redline.
The packaging is the more durable joke. A transverse V8 in the nose concentrates a great deal of interesting machinery in a space that must also accommodate a transmission, steering, cooling, and ordinary service access. The engineering task was to make that arrangement work as a refined sedan, not simply to win an argument by opening the hood.
Inside, wood and carefully finished upholstery supplied a credible luxury setting; Poltrona Frau leather was an available specification rather than a reason to ignore the other trim choices. The electrically retractable rear spoiler offered a discreet way to advertise the exceptional engine when discretion became tiresome. It also added a moving assembly to a trunk lid. The Thema thus managed to combine understated appearance with a switch-operated exception to understated appearance.
A later Chrysler-derived Thema suggests an entertaining counterfactual: another deliberately incongruous Ferrari engine, another executive body, another service department arranging an urgent meeting. But the real 8.32 needs no fictional successor or invented conversation with Enzo Ferrari. Its distinction is that Lancia turned an apparently unreasonable combination into an actual car. The eleventh point recognizes the distance traveled between the sensible platform program and the engine chosen to complete it. Rationalization had a lovely time until someone opened the hood.
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