It's a face-off! This picture reveals how the front of Mercedes' eagerly awaited next-generation S-Class will look. Although partly covered with black plastic cladding, it is obvious the new design is sleeker and more sculpted than that of the current car.

This official picture gives the world its first glimpse of the finished model, which will hit British showrooms in the autumn. As well as a new nose, the S-Class boasts a raft of clever hi-tech safety kit.

The current model was the first car with Pre-safe. This system senses an imminent impact using data from sensors, and automatically moves the electric seats to the safest position, closes the sunroof and pre-tensions the seatbelts. In the next S-Class, the set-up is enhanced and shuts the side windows, too. It also moves the front and rear backrests, and inflates the side bolsters to anchor and cushion occupants.

This function is a development of the Dynamic Multi-Contour Seat, already used in range-topping Mercs, which alters the chair's shape according to cornering forces. However, the idea of the inflatable bolsters has been expanded to keep occupants further away from the site of a side impact.

Another development on the new car is Brake-Assist Plus. This uses the radar beam of the Distronic adaptive cruise control to boost braking pressure if you're about to crash into a car in front. A similar system has just been launched in the new Lexus GS430 (see our first drive on Page 27), but instead of applying maximum braking, the Mercedes set-up continuously alters the pressure as required. Meanwhile, a second, short-range radar, which scans an area 80 degrees wide ahead of the car, looks out for impacts from other angles.

The maker used its Berlin-based driving simulator - the most realistic device owned by any car manufacturer - to develop Brake-Assist Plus. Tests, which including braking from 81mph to avoid hitting stationary traffic, showed that it reduced the number of collisions from 44 per cent to 11 per cent.