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I’m more often befuddled than bedazzled by technology.

The new Mercedes-Benz S-Class is an exception. This car offers so many neat, useful — OK, I’ll say it, amazing — gadgets that I’m still abuzz two weeks after handing back the keys.

And, miraculously, these tech bits don’t overshadow the fine automobile that contains them.

The 2007 S550 is certainly one of the best cars around, and it’s certainly one of the most expensive. Our test model, with its Capri blue paint and gray leather interior, had a base price of $85,400. Throw in the destination charge, the gas-guzzler tax (city mileage is a pitiful 16 mpg) and nearly $20,000 worth of options and you get a $105,045 car that redefines fully loaded.

Let’s talk just a bit about the car itself. It’s longer, wider and gains three inches of wheelbase vs. the 2006 S500. It features a new, 382-horsepower, 5.5-liter V-8 and a seven-speed automatic transmission.

Outside, it’s stately, but not stodgy. It’s a huge car — at more than 17 feet long, it’s longer than the new Cadillac Escalade sport-utility — but not one that resembles a land yacht of yore.

Inside, there’s spacious accommodations for five people, and there’s no doubt they’ll quickly grow accustomed to riding in style.

Up front, leather-covered power seats offer both heating and ventilation (as part of a $1,250 option package). They also feature a massaging feature (another option, costing $1,800) that allows four settings from slow and comforting to fast and vigorous, where the seat mechanicals give your back a solid workout. And, as in the BMW M5, the seats can be programmed to provide inflatable side bolstering in turns.

In back, rear-seat passengers get power adjustable seats ($1,120 — ka-ching), which also are heated.

But the fancy seats are just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s talk about two high-tech features.

Distronic Plus adaptive cruise control with Brake Assist Plus is a long-winded name for a safety system that comes very close to making this a drives-by-itself machine. With the technology, you can set your speed (just like normal cruise control) and set your comfort distance for the car ahead of you. Then, on the highway, it’ll react to nearby traffic, slowing the car when the car in front slows and accelerating back to speed when the lane is clear. If someone enters your lane, it’ll brake very quickly as needed.

It was uncanny how well it worked (and unnerving for me to let the car’s brain make these decisions).

And if you, the driver, don’t hit the brake pedal fast enough, the car will beep and get the braking system ready for hard braking. The German automaker said its tests show this technology reduces rear-end collisions by 75 percent.

The other head-turner is the S550’s infrared night-view assist. General Motors first offered something it called Night Vision on a 2000 Cadillac. Its thermal-energy detector sensed heat, allowing drivers to “see” people and animals (projected onto a windshield display) before their eyes could. But it was grainy, and few drivers thought it was useful enough to be worth the price (about $2,000).

The Mercedes system is more like a video game: Infrared beams are projected ahead and a tiny camera captures a real-time black-and-white image on an eight-inch TFT instrument-panel monitor. It’s like watching yourself drive. I found it both utterly fascinating and extremely distracting. The clarity is crystal clear. Mercedes-Benz says it can see 500 feet ahead of the human eye. It operates only at night, is a $1,150 option and can be turned on and off.

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Contact Matt Nauman at mnauman@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5701.