Maybach, We Hardly Knew Ye (Or Cared, Really)

It seemed like such a wonderful idea: build a car that combined the styling of the Hyundai XG300, albeit without some of the more tasteful details of that model, and the interior of the thoroughly-reviled W220 S-Class, albeit with carved-wood buttons. Drop a twin-turbo V-12 and some retractable curtains in it. Paint it in two-tone schemes that wouldn’t have passed muster of a ’78 d’Elegance, and charge three hundred grand for it. Oh yeah, name it after a car nobody remembers, just to make absolutely certain there’s no brand equity. Thus was the Maybach born.

And this is how it dies: with a whimper, at the feet of the S-Klasse whose shadow it could never completely escape.

Quoth Bloomberg,

Daimler AG will shut down its super- luxury Maybach brand when a revamped version of the flagship Mercedes-Benz S-Class comes to market in 2013.

Perhaps this will help explain why. This is a Maybach 57S:

This is a Mercedes S350 Bluetec:

One of those cars costs $91,300. The other one costs $372,500. See if you can get your wife/girlfriend/whatever to understand which one costs more and why that is the case. Oh yeah, let’s throw one more contender into the pot:

That was kind of a cheap shot, I admit.

The Maybach wasn’t entirely without merit. The engines were astonishing (although you could get them in the S-Class) and the interior quality was largely in keeping with the price. In the long run, however, selling a tarted-up pastiche S-Class for Rolls-Royce money didn’t make any sense. Goodnight, Maybach.

Full disclaimer, modern blog style: My future sister-in-law, Catherine Plant, was once paid to dress up in a very shimmery outfit and burst out of the Maybach 62’s sunroof at a Mercedes-Benz reveal party back in 2002 or thereabouts. At the time, she was working as a model and magician’s assistant, and somehow that led to this weird thing where they pulled the cover off the 62 very dramatically and had her burst out of the top while not bursting out of her own top. I attended the party, ate two light snacks, and was heard to remark, “They should have left the cover on it.” This remark was later on construed to mean that Ms. Plant should have been left to die in the car. We are currently not speaking.