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In the January issue of Automobile Magazine we feted our All-Stars, one of which was awarded to the Mercedes-Benz S-class. I actually wrote that piece, and I said that it was “the luxury car that’s just right.” Allow me to second-guess myself after driving the 518-hp S63 AMG for the weekend.

This isn’t to say that I think the S-class has dramatically fallen off in quality in the last 4 months—it still rides and handles like almost no other car in its class, and it’s still “dripping with luxury accoutrements and high-tech accessories.” It’s just that, in the last several months, the world—or rather, my view of the world—has changed. I find myself thinking that any S-class other than the S550 (382-hp V-8) is overkill. (In case you're wondering, the S600 has a 510-hp twin-turbo V-12, and the S65 AMG produces a whopping 604 hp and 738 (!) lb-ft of torque.)

The price of gas is now edging up toward the $4.00 per gallon mark in the U.S., and there seems to be no ceiling to the price of a barrel of oil ($117 or so as of Friday). I found myself, while driving the exceedingly fast, exceedingly sybaritic S63, feeling just the slightest bit, how should I say it? Guilty. Yep, I guess that’s the right word. Don’t get me wrong, I still felt a thrill when I floored the throttle to pass the Sunday drivers who insisted on driving 2 mph below the speed limit, but I couldn’t help wondering how much that particular move cost me. $1.00? $2.00? Was it worth it?

I don’t have an answer to that question, but it’s one that will be asked more and more as the price of oil continues its inexorable climb. In a perfect world, we’d all be able to drive exactly the kind of cars we wanted, and damn the consequences. Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world.  

Since when does a guy who can afford something like an S class give a crap about anyone else, but the guy driving the S class? He doesn't care about oil prices! Hell he created the high prices. Lets not start feeling guilty for using gas. What next? Guilty because you had an extra helping at the buffet when there are starving kids in Africa? Bottomline is as long as you have something nice, more likely than not, someone else got screwed so you could have it. Thats just how the world works. We exploit kids in India to have nice rugs. We exploit poor Chinese workers in sweat shops to have nice shoes. Its every where!