Maybach: Man and car. Chronicle of greatness
Maybach has one of most controversial histories in the automotive world. It contains both great progressive moments and very dark times. The brand even had to face an untimely death. And we can currently witness its revival.
Dad of the world automotive industry
August Wilhelm Maybach is an apprentice of the charitable institution for the poor Reutlinger Bruderhaus (Reutlinger Fraternal House) founded by the pastor Gustav Werner. The institution was actually very cool, because apart from education the poor orphan Wilhelm Maybach also received an interesting profession, which would now be called Industrial Design. As a result, he was able to professionally draw and design complex technical devices. Moreover, in 1863, Wilhelm Maybach befriended Gottlieb Daimler, who ran a factory that was part of the structure of the educational institution. Daimler quickly realized that the young Wilhelm Maybach was a technical genius and took him under his wing. Their cooperation lasted until 1900 and eventually became largely decisive for the automotive industry. As part of this duet, Maybach accompanied Daimler and visited different companies where he was engaged in the refinement and improvement of engines.
At the end of 1883, Daimler and Maybach patented their first compact and powerful engine. Therefore, Maybach’s principal line of activity was focused on the design of advanced engines. A couple of years later, the predecessor of all modern gasoline engines, “Grandfather Clock engine”, was created on the basis of the first engine. And a smaller version of this engine was installed on a wooden bike. Happy birthday, motorcycle! At the same time, Daimler and Maybach came up with a carburetor, which also set the direction for the development of automotive technology for a long time. Happy birthday carburetor!
Next, Daimler and Maybach built their first car. Chronologically, it was not the first, but it was the first model designed from scratch. That is, it was a real car, not a carriage with an engine. This grand event took place in 1889. And somewhere at the same time, two Reutlinger brothers made an even more revolutionary and very underestimated discovery, which influenced the general development of the entire human civilization. Daimler and Maybach eventually came to the conclusion that it was better to use gasoline in an internal combustion engine than anything else. And gasoline was then sold in pharmacies as a means for cleaning clothes.
It is Daimler and Maybach who are ‘to blame’ for the fact that humanity has switched to gasoline cars
In 1890, Daimler, together with Wilhelm Maybach and Max Duttenhofer (a very cool German industrialist), organized Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG). The company produced compact internal combustion engines, which, as it turned out, could be used on any type of transport on land, on water or in the air. They say that it was this concept that formed the basis of the famous Mercedes three-beam star. In addition to the engines themselves, the company also tried to produce cars with its own engine. As a result of the vicissitudes of life, DMG was left without a senior Daimler for some time (Gottlieb’s son, Paul, already worked at the company) and without Maybach. But in 1894, British industrialist Frederick Simms purchased the rights to the new Daimler Phoenix engine and insisted that the older Daimler and Maybach return to the business.
The fruitful joint work of talented German engineers continued, but, alas, not for long. In 1900, Gottlieb Daimler died of heart disease, but his work still lives on. That same year Maybach introduced a completely new type of car to the world, which was called the Mercedes 35 PS. Happy birthday Mercedes! DMG officially registered the Mercedes trademark in June 1902.
DMG without Daimler was no longer the same, so Maybach collected his drawings, left the company and joined Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who had long begged Maybach to work on airships. In 1909, Wilhelm Maybach and his son Karl began joined the Luftfahrzeug-Motoren-GmbH, which was then renamed Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH (Maybach Engine Construction Company). In 1916, they developed a unique aircraft engine with 160 hp and even managed to sell a couple of thousand engines by the time Germany was defeated in the First World War.
One of the consequences of the defeat was that Germany was not authorized to produce airships. As a result, Maybach was forced to switch to the production of high-speed diesel engines for naval and rail transport and gasoline engines for cars. But Germany was not rich back then. Consequently, there were no large automobile factories, and Maybach automobile engines were expensive for small enterprises. The Dutch company Spyker was already going to buy engines, but Maybach did not like the terms of sale and decided to make the cars himself.
Maybach Automobiles und MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH
From the very beginning of his career as an automotive manufacturer, Maybach decided not to waste money on trifles, but to produce cars of the highest quality. The first phase of the Maybach car brand was not very long. The first two models were rather prototypes: W 1 and W 2. Nevertheless, happy birthday, Maybach brand! In 1921, the manufacturer introduced the Maybach W 3, the first mass-produced car with an in-line 6-cylinder engine with 70 hp. The model was demonstrated at the 1921 Berlin Automobile Exhibition. The W 3 was followed by the W 5 in 1927. In 1930, the W 6 model and the famous Maybach Zeppelin Typ DS 7 and Maybach Zeppelin Typ DS 8 appeared. Almost 4-meter long, the Maybach Zeppelin weighted three tons and needed a special permit in order to be used in Germany due to its heavy weight. The engine produced an impressive 200 hp. Maybach cars were not only excellent for their time, but also really enjoyed success, as they were cheaper than similar cars from other brands.
Until the end of 1940, the manufacturer released a number of modifications of the W 5, Maybach Typ DSH and the SW model. But all this happened without Wilhelm, who died in 1929. Despite the huge contribution to the development of the automotive industry and the ability to design the coolest cars for his time, the main thing for Wilhelm Maybach was the ability to create. Like the canonical mad scientist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Maybach was extremely modest and never had… his own car, preferring to travel by public transport or on foot.
Wilhelm Maybach was extremely modest and never owned a car, preferring to travel by public transport or on foot
Having come to power in Germany, the fascists launched the production of tanks and military vehicles at the automobile plant. This is a very dark time in the history of the company. One of the sons of Wilhelm, Karl Maybach, was Hitler’s friend, which is why it is believed that he had almost a complete monopoly on the production of engines for military vehicles. And another son of Wilhelm Maybach, Adolf, was killed as part of the “euthanasia” program as “inferior”, because he suffered from schizophrenia since childhood…
In 1945, American pilots bombed the Maybach factory. Karl Maybach was arrested. Until 1952 he worked for the French army, at the Laboratoire de recherches balistiques et aérodynamiques in Vernon, where he developed tank engines. After the defeat of Germany in World War II, the production of cars at Maybach Automobiles was terminated. The plant produced diesel engines.
In the early 1960s, Daimler-Benz acquired the company and renamed it MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH. The plant continued to develop and produce engines for the needs of Daimler-Benz. Strictly speaking, Maybach also produced cars, but only special series, W108 and W116, which were assembled by hand, and they, of course, belonged to the Mercedes brand. MTU exists to this day and is involved in the same activity, but is now part of the Rolls-Royce company. It has nothing to do with the Maybach car brand.
Maybach-Manufaktur
The pre-war Maybach cars, especially the giant Zeppelin, are classic retro cars. Such brands never die, as automakers periodically try to revive them. So it happened with the Maybach brand. In 2000, Daimler-Benz and Daimler Chrysler (now Daimler AG) announced that the Maybach car brand was coming back in 2002. This was preceded by the presentation of the Maybach concept car by Mercedes-Benz at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show.
Maybach luxury sedans were produced from 2002 to 2012 at Maybach-Manufaktur, which was part of the Mercedes-Benz Cars division of the Daimler Group. For ten years, the company has produced a series of excellent cars (numbers in the names are the body length in decimeters):
- Maybach 57
- Maybach 62
- Maybach 57 S
- Maybach 62 S
- Maybach 57 Zeppelin
- Maybach 62 Zeppelin
- Maybach 62 S Coupé
- Maybach 62 S Landaulet
- Maybach Exelero (concept car).
The new Maybach models are based on the chassis of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class 140 series, which was produced from 1991 to 1998. Mercedes-Benz planned on using Maybach cars as a way to compete with Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars. But it didn’t work out. The project didn’t become commercially successful. For some reason, the cars were sold poorly, and the manufacturer not only did not earn anything on expensive models, but even lost.
Maybach ceased to exist as a separate brand in 2012
One of the major flaws of Maybach models was an outdated chassis of the S-Class model, which was not enough for a luxury car. The driving dynamics was far from perfect. Moreover, the Maybach was not positioned as a luxury car for individual driving, but only as a luxury car for driving with a personal driver, which was no longer the case in the 2000s. In an attempt to preserve the brand, Daimler AG offered to develop new Maybach models together with Aston Martin. But that didn’t work either. As a result, Maybach ceased to exist as a separate brand in 2012.
Mercedes-Maybach
In 2014, Daimler announced the revival of the Maybach name as a sub-brand of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W222), but also close to the sub-brand of Mercedes-AMG. With the new Maybach, Mercedes-Benz has expressed its intention to compete against the luxurious Bentley Mulsanne, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Bentley Flying Spur and Rolls-Royce Ghost. To date, the following Maybach cars have been produced:
- Mercedes-Maybach S600
- Mercedes-Maybach S500
- Mercedes-Maybach S600 Pullman
- Mercedes-Maybach S 650 Cabriolet
- Mercedes-Maybach S550
- Mercedes-Maybach S650
- Mercedes-Maybach G 650 Landaulet
- Mercedes-Maybach GLS600.
The Mercedes S 550 or S 560 look very presentable, which is why the heads of large corporations, mafia members, dictators of third countries of the world and other rich and famous people choose them. The Mercedes-Maybach 6 and Mercedes-Maybach 6 Cabriolet look supernatural and super beautiful. At the same the G 650 Landaulet is more brutal and military-inspired. On the other hand, there are also ultra-expensive luxury SUVs like the Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600. In 2021, the manufacturer released the electric Mercedes-Maybach Concept EQS. But in any of its versions, modern Maybach models from Mercedes-Maybach are the extremely luxurious, huge, massive, technically perfect and fantastically comfortable cars. Let’s hope that the great founder August Wilhelm Maybach is not disappointed by the resurrection of the brand after so many years.
