By Dave Abrahams
Bottrop, Germany - This may well be the slowest Brabus ever built, with its top speed limited to just 90km/h, but it is also arguably the most luxurious.
It’s the Brabus VIP Conference Lounge, a mobile business centre with seating for two staff and six guests, based on a long-wheel Mercedes-Benz Sprinter delivery van with raised roof.
Mechanically it's pretty standard, with 140kW and 444Nm on tap from its three-litre V6 turbodiesel (which is exactly what Mercedes quotes for this engine) driving the rear wheels via a 7G-tronic auto transmission. But then you wouldn't want warp-factor acceleration anyway; the plutocrats in the passenger compartment might spill their drinks…
What it does have is practically every bell and whistle Stuttgart offers for the Sprinter, including Mastercode air suspension, satnav, an electrically operated sliding door on the right, heated comfort seats for the flight deck, rear parking sensors and camera, heat-insulated glass, and remote control for the climate control and hot water system.
Then it gets really outrageous: The lounge area is trimmed in black and dark grey leather, with deep pile carpeting on the floor and a grey alcantara headliner. It has six individual Brabus Conference reclining seats with heated squabs and armrests; the first row faces the middle row with a removable conference table between them.
The third row has a small fridge, removable without tools, between the seats, and an alcantara-trimmed roof trunk runs down the centre of the cabin to house the remote-controlled air conditioning and individual gimballed reading lights for each seat.
Infotainment
There are two TV monitors mounted on the partitions fore and aft, with an onboard media player, a BluRay player, fourth-generation Apple TV, and a high-speed LTE internet router, all controlled from a separate 10 inch tablet. Each seat also has its own USB port for access to the system, as well as charging personal electronics.
The exterior has been zhoozhed up with special black paint, a Brabus front bumper incorporating LED daytime running lights, wheel-arch flares and Brabus badging front and rear.
All of which will set you back a whopping €224 910 (R3.46 million) ex works, about a third more than a Mercedes Maybach S600 - but then it does have a third more seating.