The V-12 Is Nearly Dead — The Maybach S680 Is One Of The Last Cars You Can Actually Buy With One
Road & Track published its test of the 2027 Mercedes-Maybach S680, and the headline underneath the headline is harder to ignore than the car itself: a twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V-12 still powers this thing, in 2026, available to order right now. That makes the S680 one of a shrinking handful of production cars where you can actually tick a V-12 on the options sheet and receive one.
The engine format is not dead yet, but the obituaries are already being drafted. Lamborghini’s Aventador successor, the Revuelto, pairs its V-12 with a hybrid system — a concession to emissions regulators that signals where even the most committed twelve-cylinder brands are heading. Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, and a small cluster of ultra-luxury and hypercar builders still offer the configuration, but confirmed phase-out timelines are tightening. If owning a V-12 production car matters to you, the window is measurably narrower than it was three years ago.
The 2027 Maybach S680: What Road & Track’s Test Confirms
The S680 rides on the Mercedes-Benz S-Class platform and tops the Maybach sedan lineup above the V-8-powered S580. Its 6.0-liter biturbo V-12 produces 621 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque, channeled through a nine-speed automatic to the rear wheels. Road & Track’s verdict, published this afternoon, frames it plainly: nobody needs a V-12, but the S680 makes a compelling case for still wanting one.
Base pricing for the 2027 S680 sits north of $240,000 in the United States. That’s a significant premium over the S580, which Road & Track separately noted is good enough that buyers with a tight grip on their billions might reasonably skip the twelve. The S680’s case rests almost entirely on the engine itself — its refinement, its torque delivery, and the particular kind of silence it produces at highway speeds that no V-8, however well-tuned, quite replicates.
Which V-12 Production Cars You Can Still Order in 2026
The confirmed list of V-12 production cars available to buyers today is short. Rolls-Royce fits every model it sells — the Ghost, Spectre excepted as an EV, the Phantom, the Cullinan, and the Dawn — with a 6.75-liter twin-turbo V-12 producing 563 to 591 horsepower depending on specification. Phantom pricing starts around $460,000; Cullinan Black Badge editions push well past $400,000. Rolls-Royce has not announced a phase-out date for the V-12, though the Spectre’s existence signals the brand’s electric direction.
Lamborghini’s Revuelto, the Aventador’s replacement, keeps the naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V-12 but hybridizes it — three electric motors combine with the combustion engine for a combined 1,001 horsepower. Purists debate whether a hybridized V-12 counts as the real article; the combustion component is genuine, but the character is altered. Base price is approximately $600,000. Ferrari’s 812 Competizione and its variants use a 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V-12 revving to 9,500 rpm — the closest thing to an old-school twelve still in production — though Ferrari has signaled the front-engined V-12 GT segment will eventually electrify. The Zenvo Aurora, a Danish hypercar confirmed for limited production and priced above €2.8 million, also uses a V-12, making it perhaps the most extreme remaining example. BMW’s M760e, the top-tier 7 Series, pairs a 4.4-liter V-8 with a plug-in hybrid system — not a V-12 — so the brand no longer fields a twelve-cylinder production car in the current generation.
How Long the Window Stays Open — What Automakers Have Said
No major automaker has publicly committed to a specific end date for V-12 production in the way some brands announced internal-combustion phase-outs broadly. But the trajectory is clear from what they have and haven’t said. Lamborghini has confirmed the Revuelto’s hybrid V-12 will carry the configuration forward for this generation, with no pure combustion successor planned. Ferrari has spoken about electrification across its lineup without specifying when the V-12 exits, though the company has emphasized it will preserve the engine’s character as long as regulations allow. Rolls-Royce, which launched the all-electric Spectre in 2024, has positioned electrification as additive rather than immediately replacing the V-12 — but the long-term direction is not ambiguous.
The Maybach S680’s continued availability is perhaps the most accessible entry point into V-12 ownership for buyers who aren’t in the Rolls-Royce or Lamborghini price bracket. At $240,000-plus it is hardly affordable, but it is the least expensive confirmed V-12 production car on the current market. Whether Mercedes-Benz extends the V-12 into the next S-Class generation remains unconfirmed. Given tightening European emissions standards and the brand’s stated EQ electrification push, the current S680 may represent the final generation of the configuration in the sedan segment.
The V-12 isn’t gone yet — but the list of cars that offer one has never been shorter, and the manufacturers still building them are either hybridizing the format or staying quiet about how much longer they’ll continue. Road & Track’s S680 test is a reminder that the window to buy a new twelve-cylinder car is open, just not indefinitely. For buyers who care about the format, the time to act is now rather than when the last allocation is spoken for.
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