As successful as he undoubtedly was in later life, Wilhelm Maybach’s early years gave no hint that he had been born under a lucky star. Born in Heilbronn in 1846, he was an orphan by the age of thirteen. His relatives managed to find him a place in the "Bruderhaus" in Reutlingen – a progressive orphanage with its own engineering workshop, where the young people received a training. This turned out to be a lucky move, for it was in the Bruderhaus that he was destined to meet the man who was to play a decisive role in his life: Gottlieb Daimler.
Daimler came to Reutlingen in 1865 to take over the management of the Bruderhaus workshop. He soon recognized Wilhelm’s technical aptitude; in addition to his apprenticeship as a technical draughtsman, Wilhelm was also studying maths and physics in evening classes at the local high school. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship – and of an extremely successful cooperation between the two men which was to have a major impact on the development of automobile design.
Their joint work took Maybach and Daimler first to Karlsruhe, then to Cologne and finally to Stuttgart. In the course of a long working life of over six decades, Wilhelm Maybach was either individually or jointly responsible for a very long list of revolutionary innovations. In 1873 Maybach takes the early engines designed by Nicolaus Otto to series-production readiness, as he also does with Otto’s four-stroke engine which appeared four years later. In 1885, under Daimler’s guidance, Maybach builds the world’s first gasoline-powered motorcycle – the so-called ‘Reitwagen’ (‘riding car’), driven by a half-horsepower engine. In 1886, Maybach and Daimler build the world’s first car. Maybach’s development of the carburetor secures for him a place in the annals of engine design. His carburetor is really the basis of modern carburetor technology. After the death of Gottlieb Daimler in 1900, Maybach builds the first Mercedes racing car.
During the following years Wilhelm Maybach, assisted by his son Karl, was primarily occupied with building airship engines for the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen. When Germany was prohibited from building airship engines after the First World War, Wilhelm Maybach was forced to rethink. He remembered his earlier interests and he and Karl started building their own cars in Friedrichshafen. From the very start they focused on the luxury end of the market, for which they developed a range of powerful, quiet engines. The 1929 Maybach Type 12 represented a high-point: it was the first car with a V-12 engine. The name of Maybach rapidly becomes a synonym for timeless elegance, high-precision craftsmanship and the ultimate in luxury.
Wilhelm Maybach died in Stuttgart in 1929, aged 83. His outstanding achievements in the area of automobile design and construction earned him the posthumous honor of inclusion in the “Automotive Hall of Fame” in Michigan and the “European Automotive Hall of Fame” in Geneva. Long before this, he had been hailed in France as “The King of Constructors”. His son Karl carried on making cars until 1941. Production then ceased – but the name and the legend of the Maybach cars lived on.
In 2002, DaimlerChrysler resurrected the tradition: once again, luxury limousines with the legendary ‘double M’ badge are being built to the highest standards and for the most discerning tastes. To experience the comfort of a Maybach is to experience something that has very little to do with ordinary driving. With a price tag of around 350,000 Euro ($455,000 or £240,000) and a 612 horse-power engine, high expectations are entirely in order.
Contact:
Daimler AG
Niederlassung Stuttgart
Bruckenbachstraße 42
71229 Leonberg
Tel. +49 7152 97350
Fax +49 7152 973592
E-Mail:
info.stuttgart@mercedes-benz.com
http://www.mercedes-benz.de
