Maybach: No Substitute For A Rolls Royce

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, the Maybach experiment was a conspiracy between Daimler and the rich to make the rest of us feel smart. The ultimate zombie brand, exhumed during the go-go nineties as a way for Daimler to charge even more for a stretched S Class, has now fallen on troubled times. And now, according to the ever-trusty limobroker.co.uk, none other than Mariah Carey has put the Maybach seemingly irrevocably in its place:

Initially a top class Mercedes complete with a chauffeur was sent to take Mariah to the studios, but this wasn’t deemed exclusive enough for a star of Mariah’s stature and was then replaced by a £250,000 Mercedes Maybach. However the Maybach limo was also rejected and then, third-time-lucky, a Rolls Royce Phantom was dispatched.

Of course the Phantom had to be “decorated with vinyl graphics of butterflies in a nod to the singer’s 1997 album entitled butterfly” before the divine Miss Carey would grace it with her presence, but that’s a topic for a more mental health-oriented forum. Ego-driven eccentricity aside, Mariah’s dismissal of the Maybach confirms Daimler’s failure to launch a Rolls-worthy competitor, an effort on which no expense was spared. It also raises the troubling question: will any brand be able to match Rolls at the pinnacle of the luxury sedan game? Maybach didn’t end up where it is because its vehicles are less competent, expensive or ostentatious than a Rolls. It even held some genuine cache amongst members of the music business for about two years. And then it just went flat. Mariah might not be able to explain why the Phantom stands alone at the top of the global luxury heap better than I can, but we both know it’s the truth. Anyone looking at going after the Phantom’s segment (hello, Bugatti Galibier and Tata’s branding graverobbers) should think long and hard about the reasons why.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Kristjan Ambroz Kristjan Ambroz on Nov 19, 2009

    I agree that the primary problem is not the brand name but the product. Although I have to admit I found one Maybach particularly humorous - a couple of months ago I saw a firetruck red one with massive corporate logos of the stationery company Ryman in front of the Ivy in London. It was truly hilarious. Apart from the Grey Goose vodka Phantoms (and those were a lot harder to spot, well, the only real giveaway was their french racing blue colour scheme) are the only from the other side of the divide :)

  • Thinx Thinx on Jan 04, 2010

    I still remember how exciting the news of a Maybach revival by Mercedes was... until I saw what they actually did with it. An utterly cynical exercise which managed to be both bland AND garish at the same time. I had high hopes that a company like Daimler-BENZ, goddammit -- BENZ -- would present us with a technological tour-de-force to reckon with, instead of the marketing tour-de-farce that it turned out to be.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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