Last week, in an interview for German magazine Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Daimler’s chairman Dieter Zetsche announced that the ultra luxury brand Maybach will soon be closed down. He added that since the luxury brand isn’t selling too good, the company has decided to focus exclusively on the upcoming Mercedes-Benz S-Class, because this model is a lot more profitable than Maybach.
Wilhelm Maybach was a very good friend of Gottlieb Daimler, working with him on different internal combustion engine project since 1865 and in 1909, together with his son, he founded what will become known as the Maybach car brand. The first model wearing the “Maybach” name tag was launched in 1921 at the Berlin Auto Show, was powered by a 5.7-liter six-cylinder inline engine that was delivering 70 hp and it marked the beginning of a golden age for the brand.
During World War II, the company built tanks for the German army and after the war car production was never restarted. Almost 20 years later, in 1960, the brand was bought by Daimler-Benz. But it was truly revived only 40 years later, in 2002, when Daimler re-launched the Maybach brand as a competitor in the ultra-luxury market, where Rolls-Royce and Bentley ruled.
However, with its two models, the Maybach 57 and Maybach 62 (named after the body’s length, 5.732 and 6.170 meters), the brand failed to compete its British rivals and it affected Mercedes’ financial results. For example, in 2010 Maybach only sold 157 units and this year things are even worse, only 44 units being sold in the United States. And while the car is extremely expensive (the cheapest one is around $400,000, while the Landaulet is the most expensive version, costing more than $1 million), sales are far from what the management was expecting.
And if you still think this might be a harsh decision from Mercedes, just look at the numbers from Maybach’s competitors: Rolls-Royce sold 2,711 units in 2010, a record for the British brand, while Bentley managed to sell 4,763 vehicles worldwide.
So why did Maybach fail? In a market where the number of potential customers with unlimited spending power grew constantly Maybach was offering two models based on an old platform, the one used on the previous generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class. And what it was fatal for Maybach was the fact that the S-Class proved to be a more powerful sub-brand, especially with it being offered in several wheelbase version, including the ultra-luxurious Pullman. In fact, after Maybach will be discontinued, Mercedes will compensate with a brand new S-Class generation, scheduled to debut in 2013 and which looks like it will be the most luxurious S-Class in history. It will be offered in three wheelbase version, including the stretched S600 Pullman.
After Mercedes decided to focus all its attention on the upcoming S-Class, Maybach tried to find solutions to develop a new model. At some point, they were close to signing a partnership with Aston Martin, according to which the British carmaker was suppose to develop the new Maybach. But these negotiations came to an end after Daimler considering the price requested by Aston Martin to be too high.
So that’s it. After a history of a little more than 100 years, the Maybach brand is leaving the car industry stage once again. Even though it was not a popular model, it still was an interesting presence in the automobile world and we can only hope that at some point it will be revived again and given a second chance to really impress us.
