- A look ahead at 7 luxury vehicles coming in 2023
- 2023 Mercedes-AMG S 63 E Performance combines V8 and hybrid for 1,000+ horsepower
- The 2023 Land Rover Defender 130 will get you there, and the hockey team too
- So you want to buy a Rolls-Royce. What’s involved?
- Lamborghini debuts the 2023 Huracán Sterrato
- Coleman Molnar
Luxury vehicles play an important part in the overall automotive ecosystem, often debuting new features, designs, and technologies before they’re rolled out to more economical models.
Here are the biggest and most recent luxury-vehicle stories, debuts, and reviews from the past month.
A look ahead at 7 luxury vehicles coming in 2023
2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre Photo by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Of the seven luxury vehicles we’re most looking forward to getting to know next year, all seven of them have electrified powertrains available. There’s the 2024 Audi Q8 e-tron and Q8 Sportback e-tron with a number of configurations including the top-tier SQ8 e-tron powered by three motors for a net 496 hp and 718 lb-ft of torque. And the 2023 BMW i7, all-electric for the first time, with two electric motors and 536 hp and 549 lb-ft of torque.
There will be much to explore within the Celestiq, too, the hand-crafted luxury four-door coupe from Cadillac, to be priced somewhere above $300,000. Lexus’ first global battery EV, the 2024 RZ 450e, will make its debut. From Rolls-Royce, there’s the full-size “ultra-luxury electric super coupé,” the Spectre, which, at between $400,000 and $560,000, is on another level. Get a quick rundown of each of these forthcoming luxury vehicles and more at the link above.
2023 Mercedes-AMG S 63 E Performance combines V8 and hybrid for 1,000+ horsepower
Mercedes-AMG C 63 S E Performance Photo by Costa Mouzouris
Mercedes-AMG recently announced the 2023 S 63 E Performance with 791 horsepower and 1,055 lb-ft of torque. The AMG sedan uses a twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 working with a 13.1-kWh-battery-powered electric motor combining to drive the car to 100 km/h in 3.3 seconds. That’s a lot of power for a luxury vehicle destined to move executives from meeting to meeting, but hey, the boss has places to be, and shall go in comfort!
The 2023 S 63 Performance comes with seven drive modes including Individual, Electric, Battery Hold, Comfort, Sport, Sport+, and Slippery, and Merc’s modern tech like active lane-change assist, active steering and drive assist, traffic-sign assist, blind-spot assist, and evasive-steering assist.
The 2023 Land Rover Defender 130 will get you there, and the hockey team too
2023 Land Rover Defender 130 Photo by Jay Kana
When you need to go extreme off-roading with seven of your closest friends, the Land Rover Defender 130 is the obvious choice. It’s huge, measuring over two metres wide, 197 cm tall, and 5,358 millimetres long. It’s powerful, with a 3.0-litre inline-six-cylinder engine that makes 395 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque available between 2,000 and 5,000 rpm. And it’s ready for all terrains, with 29 cm of ground clearance, water fording up to 90 cm, and suspension articulation of up to 43 cm. We tested the $107,380 First Edition 2023 Defender 130 with the towing package over 500 km and a couple of days; it averaged 12.4 L/100 km.
There are some issues, like the at-times awkward digital rear view camera and some ill-placed buttons and knobs. In all, however, it’s a lot of truck, and a great truck, starting at $93,000.
So you want to buy a Rolls-Royce. What’s involved?
2023 Rolls-Royce Phantom Photo by Sam Cobb
Getting a vehicle as exclusive and luxe as a Rolls-Royce into your driveway is a bit different than buying a more run-of-the-mill car. It’s sort of like comissioning a personalized piece of art: the more rare the options you choose, the longer production can take.
On average, a Rolls-Royce will be delivered to a customer in about 12 to 18 months, but if you pick any hyper bespoke options, it could take upwards of three years. The brand sells about 5,000 vehicles globally and about 200 of those are to Canadian customers, so it goes without saying that what you’re ordering is going to be incredibly special from start to finish. There aren’t a lot of Rolls-Royce dealerships to choose from in Canada, with Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver being the four major city centres you can go into to walk through the buying process. Learn more at the link above.
Lamborghini debuts the 2023 Huracán Sterrato
2023 Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato Photo by Lamborghini
The 2023 Huracán Sterrato is the answer to the question “what if?” asked by exactly the right people — namely, Lamborghini’s then-chief technical officer, Maurizio Reggiani, and Rouven Mohr, head of the prototype department — at exactly the right time. Fast-forward from 2017 to 2023 and the V10-powered off-road-ready supercar is prepped to tackle the “unpaved and sandy surfaces.”
The Sterrato sits on serious off-road tires with nearly two inches more in ground clearance, and a suspension that’s been rally-ified to the tune of an additional 30 per cent and 35 per cent in the front and rear respectively. Inside, Lamborghini luxuries like Alcantara Verde Sterrato upholstery complements new rally gauges like an inclinometer with pitch and roll indicators and a compass with geographic coordinates. The Sterratos should roll out sometime after February 2023.
Coleman Molnar
Coleman Molnar learned to drive in his family’s rusty farm pickup as a teenager and continues the forearm-strengthening tradition today from behind the wheel of his 1983 Volkswagen Westfalia. Spot him in the slow lane, or on Instagram @Lietco
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Keyword: Luxury Motoring Roundup: 2023’s most-anticipated luxury vehicles, how to buy a Rolls-Royce, and more