If the British hated it, it's because we saw it for what it was... a tarted up S-Class attempting to challenge the established luxury marques that had just fallen into the hands of Mercedes' rival domestic brands, under a brand name that meant sod all to most people. It didn't help it was notably driven/owned by total tosser figures in our media, like Simon Cowell. It may well have been an excellent car but it's wider market reception didn't do much to disprove what the British may have thought - and I'm not even sure I agree we hated it that much. R-R&BMC products had a distinct old-man, old-money aristocracy about them at the time - both brands have somewhat reinvented themselves since, but the Maybach was perceived by some as the new-money choice for people that had profited from the dot com bubble, rather than what your great uncle Sir Gregory Mountbatten-Pifflewank might have bought.
A rival from Mercedes was nothing new for Rolls-Royce or Bentley either, they'd benchmarked previous models against the S-Class and S-Class Pullman before, my dad was on the team of people that analysed the latter.
