Maybach is founded in 1909. Between 1921 and 1940, the company produces opulent automobiles for heads of state.

Sixty years after its death, Mercedes resurrects the brand to compete with BMW's Rolls-Royce and the VW Group's Bentley. Yet Maybach's heritage seems known only to DaimlerChrysler's marketing department.

With the brand's relaunch, AutoExtremist becomes among the first to float the theory that Maybach counters everything Mercedes-Benz has told its customers for more than a century: that their cars are the best. Does it not now seem disingenuous for Mercedes-Benz to say, here, there's something better yet?

The Maybach debuts in 2005, with a 5.5-liter V12 pumping out 510 horsepower. That same year, Mercedes-Benz exhibits its S65, with 604 horsepower, costing half as much. For 2007, the Maybach 62 makes 550 horsepower but, paradoxically enough, it cannot match its less-expensive sister�s power or newness � and its price tag increases by $50,000.

Much though the Maybach Exelero Concept has impressed all who have laid eyes on it, the car remains a stillborn idea.

In 2006, Maybach Manufactur sells 164 cars in the United States, 72% short of its target. Mercedes-Benz begins buying back Maybach franchises from its dealerships across the United States in October 2007. The move will bring the number closer in line to that for Rolls-Royce and Bentley, yet rumors fly that the Weimar-era ultra-luxury brand is done for. The total number of Maybach dealers is to drop from 71 to 42, and no new Maybach models are in the pipeline.

Worse yet for the franchisees concerned, Mercedes-Benz is reimbursing $125,000 of the $500,000 that the Maybach set-ups cost.


Maybach would likely have fared better if DaimlerChrysler had positioned it away from Mercedes, designing it without so many last-generation S-Class references.

"Maybach was a compromised design, lacking the Phantom's boldness and the Arnage's taste," writes Gunnar Heinrich of the Automobiles De Luxe blog (Automobiles De Luxe, October 2^nd, 2007). Indeed, Daimler-Benz's ultra-luxury car looks for all the world like an overgrown S-Class, not special enough next to Rolls-Royce and Bentley, and nowhere near as imaginative as Cadillac's Sixteen Concept of 2003 (a car that, unfortunately enough, remains a missed opportunity).