Maybach
Maybach was a German luxury car manufacturer founded in 1909. Today Daimler owns the ultra-luxury brand. After announcing in 2011 that the Maybach brand would cease to exist by 2013, Daimler manufactured the last Maybach vehicle in December 2012 due to poor sales of only 3,000 cars since the brand’s 2002 revival. The decision follows almost a decade of attempts to make Maybach a profitable rival to Rolls Royce and Bentley. A new and more luxurious S-Class from Mercedes, also owned by Daimler, has replaced Maybach.
Wilhelm Maybach was a Daimler technical director until he left in 1907. In March 1909 he founded a new company, Maybach, with his son Karl as director. The company originally manufactured engines for Zeppelins and then rail cars. It built an experimental car in 1919, introduced it two years later at the Berlin Motor Show, and between 1921 and 1940 produced opulent vehicles that became classics. The company also continued to build heavy-duty diesel engines for maritime and rail applications.
During World War II, Maybach produced engines for medium and heavy tanks. The Friedrichshafen engine plant was one of several allied-targeted industries. After World War II, the factory never resumed automotive production until Daimler purchased the company in 1960 and used it to make special-edition W108 and W116 models virtually hand-built. These cars carried the Mercedes badge and serial numbers.
Daimler displayed a luxury concept car at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show. A derivative production model came in two sizes, the Maybach 57 and the Maybach 62, indicating car lengths in decimeters. In 2005, came the 57 S powered by a 6.0-liter, 12-cylinder bi-turbo engine producing 604 horsepower. To promote the restored Maybach line, Mercedes-Benz engaged celebrities as brand ambassadors.
The base price of a 2009 Maybach 57 was $344,000, of a Maybach 57 S $381,000, a Maybach 62 $394,000, a Maybach 62 S $430,000, and of a Maybach Landaulet semi-convertible $1 million. Daimler predicted annual sales of 2,000 worldwide, half in the USA; however, these predictions never came to pass. In 2010, Daimler sold only 157 Maybachs worldwide compared to 2,711 Rolls-Royces priced similarly.
With a poor Maybach sales outlook in the 2008 financial crisis, Daimler AG undertook a complete review, approaching Aston Martin to engineer and style the next generation of Maybach models along with the next generation of Lagondas. But Automotive News reported 2011 sales of only 44 Maybachs in the USA through October.
Maybach is set for replacement by the next-generation of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class for the 2014 model year. Daimler apparently has concluded that sales prospects for the Mercedes brand are better.
According to Fortune magazine, after failing to purchase Rolls-Royce and Bentley when for sale in the ’90s, Mercedes reconsidered and decided it should be in the ultra-luxury market too but went about it clumsily.Fortune says that the first Maybach models performed poorly against Rolls-Royce and Bentley: Mercedes took an aging S-class frame and put an overly- elongated body on it rather than develop a new car as BMW had with Rolls-Royce.
Another problem for Maybach was that Daimler failed to differentiate it from its Mercedes-Benz brand. The Maybach pedigree was virtually unknown outside Germany, unlike its world-renowned British rivals. The 2006 Rolls-Royce interior has the feel of a 1930s car, but the Maybach 57 S has no brand history to recall.
In November 2011, Daimler announced that the Maybach-brand would cease to exist in 2012. Remnant Maybach limousines would be available until 2013, after which the name “Maybach” would be no longer in use. In August 2012, Daimler announced the official discontinuation of Maybach and in December of that year manufactured the last.
