Daimler Quietly Puts Maybach Brand to Rest

Daimler AG purchased the Maybach luxury car brand in 1960 and eventually groomed it to become a rival to ultra-luxury vehicle manufacturers Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Now, Daimler has quietly ended the Maybach saga.

Everybody knew the fate of the brand after Dr. Dieter Zetche in November last year confirmed its discontinuation. The final nail on the coffin was the new pricelist released by Mercedes-Benz USA featuring its 2013 model range. All the five Maybach models offered in the US—the 57, 57 S, 62, 62 S, and Landaulet—were listed as “Discontinued.”

In the end its major claim to fame was its price…high even by Rolls Royce and Bentley standards.   You have to figure they thought that alone would attract the Rolls Royce customer.   Which means they didn’t really understand that customer.   But even worse, Daimler forgot who they are.

I think I understand a little better why they did it now.   Daimler produced a Maybach concept car in the late 90s while it looked like troubled Rolls Royce Motors would be sold off and Audi and BMW were looking on hungrily (the name Maybach comes from Wilhelm Maybach, the engineering and design genius who worked with Gottlieb Daimler back in the early days, and who designed the first the Mercedes model, built to the specifications of auto enthusiast and racer Emil Jellinek (whose daughter was named Mercedes…Jellinek named that first Maybach designed race car after his daughter.)).   Eventually Audi was successful in getting the Rolls Royce car and its factories, but BMW got the rights to the Rolls Royce name, the distinctive grille, and the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament, and in the early 2000s started a new Rolls Royce bloodline literally from scratch.   Which by the way also explains why the new Rolls is so damn ugly.   You can say a lot of good things about BMWs from an engineering standpoint I suppose, but beautiful cars they really just aren’t (except for the two seater).

I guess Daimler felt under the circumstances they had to compete with BMW, their arch rival, for the Rolls Royce customer.   So out came the Maybach around the same time as BMW started making its BMW Rolls and Audi was producing what were Rolls Royces but now under the Bentley marque.   But the Mercedes marque was never about luxury merely for its own sake and ironically by trying to out Rolls BMW they weren’t rising their sights but lowering them.

That is why they failed.   The Maybach was built on a prior ‘S’ class frame and had none of the cutting edge engineering and technology the current model ‘S’ class had. It was merely an older ‘S’ with lots of ostentatious luxury touches…rare leathers, woods, a champagne cooler in the armrest, and so on.   By dropping the Maybach and instead producing an “ultimate” ‘S’ class variant they’re back to their place of artistry and strength and where their traditional customers, who are not about luxury for its own sake, are.

When Gottlieb Daimler said “The best or nothing” he wasn’t talking about the rarest and most expensive leather for the upholstery.