1. Press trial drive in Dubai
2. Maybach 62 S: exterior and interior
3. Maybach 62 S: engine and chassis
4. Maybach 57, Maybach 57 S, Maybach 62
5. Center of Excellence and Manufaktur Workshop
6. History
7. New high-performance tire

History: Exclusive luxury saloons steeped in tradition

• Wilhelm Maybach, the "King of the design engineers"
  
  
• Mercedes-Benz and Maybach belong to the elite of the car world
  
  
• "Cars you'd give your last wish to own"
  
  

Stuttgart/Dubai, Jan 28, 2007
Designed with meticulous attention to detail, built in a state-of-the-art manufacturing factory and kitted out with 21st-century automotive technology, the Maybach 57, Maybach 62, Maybach 57 S and new Maybach 62 S are writing the next chapter in the history of the renowned Maybach cars of the 1920s and 30s, which stood alongside Mercedes-Benz models as some of the finest examples of automotive excellence worldwide.

The Mercedes-Benz and Maybach automotive brands have much in common besides a long and distinguished tradition. Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929), a long-time associate of Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900), held the post of technical director at Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) and was the brains behind the construction of the first Mercedes, the template for all modern-day passenger cars, in 1901. For this reason, Maybach was much admired and known as the "King of the design engineers".

In 1907 Wilhelm Maybach – who took his place in the European Automotive Hall of Fame in Geneva in March 2004 – left DMG, joining forces with his son Karl in 1909 to build powerful engines for the airships produced by Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin. In the years after 1919 Karl Maybach (1879-1960) – by then based in Friedrichshafen on the shores of Lake Constance – made quite a name for himself through the development and construction of exclusive and technically flawless luxury cars. By 1941, Karl Maybach had built around 1800 of these high-class vehicles, with the bodies painstakingly designed and equipped by specialist firms according to the customers' specifications. Many of these were chauffeur-driven saloons.

The flagship Maybach model was the DS 8 “Zeppelin” of 1931. At some 5.5 metres in length, the “Zeppelin” ranked as one of the most prestigious German cars of its time “a car of the greatest elegance and power which you would give your last wish to own,” as a Maybach brochure put it.

With over 100 years of experience and technical expertise in the development and production of Mercedes-Benz luxury saloons behind it, it was only natural that the DaimlerChrysler Group decided to inject the Maybach name with new life in 2002. Close cooperation with sister brand Mercedes-Benz – the world's leading innovator in terms of automotive safety, quality, reliability and longevity – was and remains the key factor in producing high-end luxury cars befitting of the Maybach brand. And the Maybach saloons benefit greatly from this technological leadership.

The two brands are now closely linked under the umbrella of the DaimlerChrysler Group: Mercedes-Benz as the technology trend-setter and world's most successful manufacturer of premium cars in high-growth market segments; Maybach as the brand for first-class, highly individual high-end luxury and prestigious saloons displaying supreme craftsmanship and innovative Mercedes technology.

This symbiosis of leading-edge Mercedes developments and classic Maybach exclusivity and individuality has once again resulted in objects of prestige on wheels without parallel: the very pinnacle of automotive engineering.

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