The long version

Buy the plug-in hybrid SL and you are paying for a spec sheet that reads better than it drives; over 800 horsepower routed through enough weight and electronic mediation that almost none of it reaches the driver as feeling. The value chart shows the market catching on fast, more than a third off sticker within three years, a steeper curve than the combustion SLs ever managed. Valet Royalty applies because that is the car's actual habitat, arriving somewhere rather than getting there interestingly, and the involvement score, the lowest of this batch, is the honest verdict on a car built almost entirely for the window sticker.