100 Years Of Maybach Automobiles 1921 — 2021

Sep­tem­ber 23, 2021 marked the 100th anniver­sary of the pre­sen­ta­tion of the first May­bach auto­mo­bile built in series under the name „Type 2270 hp“ , bet­ter known as the May­bach Car „Type W 3“. The car was first pre­sent­ed at the Ger­man Motor Show in Berlin at 1921, and great­ly impressed the audi­ence at the auto show with its extreme­ly high qual­i­ty and inno­v­a­tive tech­ni­cal fea­tures. For exam­ple, it was the first Ger­man auto­mo­bile to be equipped with a four-wheel brake and the car could be dri­ven with­out a stick shift. An adver­tise­ment by May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH from 1921, see image 1, shows the May­bach Car „Type W 3“ amongst an enthu­si­as­tic crowd and show­cas­es the vehi­cle as a com­fort­able and road­wor­thy auto­mo­bile. The May­bach Car „W 3“ already rep­re­sent­ed the prin­ci­ples accord­ing to which auto­mo­biles of the May­bach brand were devel­oped and man­u­fac­tured under the direc­tion of Karl May­bach (1879 — 1960) in Friedrichshafen, Ger­many: metic­u­lous pre­ci­sion for the high­est qual­i­ty, the best mate­ri­als for the great­est pos­si­ble oper­a­tional reli­a­bil­i­ty and the use of the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy for com­fort­able driving.

Image 1: Adver­tise­ment of the first May­bach Car „Type 2270 hp — W 3“, pub­lished in 1921. Source: Col­lec­tion of Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foundation.

1919 — 2021 — From the first exper­i­men­tal car to the pro­duc­tion car

Image 2: May­bach „Ver­such­swa­gen 1“ („Test Car 1“) on the fac­to­ry premis­es of May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH, 1919. Pho­to: Rolls-Royce Pow­er Sys­tems AG

After World War I, Karl May­bach designed the May­bach „Type W 1“ car engine in response to the Ver­sailles Peace Treaty’s ban on the man­u­fac­tur­ing process of air­ship and air­craft engines in Ger­many. This exper­i­men­tal engine was installed in a Daim­ler-Motoren-Gesellschaft tour­ing car for test pur­pos­es in 1919 and was one of the most promis­ing auto­mo­bile designs of the time. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the has not been pre­served and is only known to us from pho­tographs, see image 2.

On behalf of the Dutch auto­mo­bile and air­craft fac­to­ry Trompen­burg, May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH pro­duced the most pow­er­ful Ger­man auto­mo­bile engine up to that time, with 70 hp and the des­ig­na­tion „W 2“ start­ing in 1921. Only 150 of these May­bach auto­mo­bile engines were installed in the the Spyk­er car mod­el „Type C4-30/40 hp“ until 1925, before the Trompen­burg com­pa­ny went bank­rupt due to eco­nom­ic reasons.

Image 3: May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH booth at the Ger­man Motor Show in Berlin, Sep­tem­ber 23 to Octo­ber 2, 1921. Pho­to: Rolls-Royce Pow­er Sys­tems AG 

In Sep­tem­ber 1921, May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH final­ly pre­sent­ed its own pas­sen­ger car at the Ger­man Motor Show in Berlin, see image 3. The unusu­al design of the „W 2“ engine installed, with its organ­ic geo­met­ric shape that ensured per­fect fuel flow impres­sive­ly shows us what a pio­neer­ing engine Karl May­bach had cre­at­ed. Like­wise, the extreme­ly gen­er­ous­ly built chas­sis of the „Type W 3“, at five meters in length, bears wit­ness to the men­tal­i­ty accord­ing to which pres­ti­gious auto­mo­biles were built in Friedrichshafen, Ger­many: Cre­ate inly the best rom the best. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, no May­bach „Type W 3“ has sur­vived the test of time.

Inno­va­tion and tech­ni­cal lead­er­ship for the high­est cus­tomer demands — the 1920s and 1930s

With the 120 hp May­bach „Type W 5“ and „Type W 5 SG“ engines, May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH pro­duced a fab­u­lous­ly fast 130 km/​h (80 mph) tour­ing car from 1926 onwards, which is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the rapid­ly chang­ing mobil­i­ty of the „Gold­en Twen­ties“. The „Type W5 SG“ was equipped with a user-friend­ly May­bach high-speed gearbox.

Image 4: Tech­ni­cal draw­ing chas­sis and V‑12 engine May­bach car type 12 Zep­pelin DS 7 & DS 8, cir­ca 1930. Pho­to: Rolls-Royce Pow­er Sys­tems AG

In 1929, the May­bach „Type 12“ was the first car in Ger­many built in series with a 12-cylin­der V‑engine and con­sti­tut­ed togeth­er with the sub­se­quent „Type 12 Zep­pelin DS 7“ and „Type DS 8“ mod­els the top prod­uct of May­bach engine con­struc­tion. All com­po­nents, see image 4, were devel­oped and man­u­fac­tured with such great effort and to such high stan­dards of qual­i­ty which had nev­er before been achieved by any oth­er Ger­man auto­mo­bile man­u­fac­tur­er. Today, the May­bach Zep­pelin car is one of the world’s most famous auto­mo­biles — the 28 sur­viv­ing 12-cylin­der vehi­cles are high­ly traded.

In order to appeal to a wider cus­tomer base, Karl May­bach offered from 1931 onwards the May­bach car „Type W 6“ a mod­er­ate­ly priced vehi­cle with the same vehi­cle size and dri­ving com­fort as the May­bach „Type 12 Zep­pelin“ mod­els. From 1934, this car was upgrad­ed to the „Type W 6 DSG“ with the so-called May­bach „Dop­pelschnell­getriebe“ (dou­ble gear­box for fast shift­ing). The equal­ly high devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion costs and Karl May­bach’s ver high-qual­i­ty stan­dards nev­er­the­less had an impact on the sell­ing price — May­bach auto­mo­biles remained lux­u­ry prod­ucts with few buy­ers. Today, only four May­bach W 6 auto­mo­biles are known to still exist.

May­bach auto­mo­bile man­u­fac­tur­ing in Friedrichshafen until 1941

Designed as a pow­er­ful and com­fort­able city and tour­ing auto­mo­bile, the
May­bach car „Type DSH“ (dou­ble six-cylin­der) was added to the May­bach
Motoren­bau sales pro­gram port­fo­lio in 1930. The new­ly devel­oped 6‑cylinder in-
line engine with 130 hp was a so-called high-speed short-stroke engine with an
out­put of 3,200 rpm. This enabled the heavy auto­mo­bile to be accel­er­at­ed
swift­ly to a cruis­ing speed of 140 km/​h (90 mph). The engine was built into the
large chas­sis of the May­bach “Type 12 Zep­pelin” -, cor­re­spond­ing­ly lux­u­ri­ous
and com­fort­able bod­ies could be built. The May­bach car „Type DSH“ was built
only in small num­bers as a tran­si­tion­al mod­el to the May­bach SW mod­els, with
the engine also being used in com­mer­cial vehi­cles. Today we know of three
vehi­cles of this type still in existence.

Image 5: May­bach car „Type SW 38“ Cabri­o­let, Spohn Ravens­burg, year of con­struc­tion 1937. Pho­to: Col­lec­tion of the Wil­helm & Karl May­bach Foundation.

In 1935, a swing-axle car (inde­pen­dent sus­pen­sion) with ultra-mod­ern engine and chas­sis tech­nol­o­gy, see image 5, was pre­sent­ed. The installed 6‑cylinder HL 35 high-per­for­mance engine with a dis­place­ment of 3.5 liters and 140 hp was devel­oped by May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH to meet the require­ments of the upcom­ing express­way
traf­fic. In the course of the Sec­ond World War II, the qual­i­ty of the gaso­line
dete­ri­o­rat­ed con­tin­u­ous­ly, which is why the dis­place­ment of the May­bach “Type
HL 35” engine was grad­u­al­ly increased in 1936 to 3.8 liters for the May­bach
“Type HL 38” engine and again in 1939 to 4.2 liters for the May­bach “Type HL
42” engine. The aim goal of May­bach Motoren­bau was to use this mea­sure to
obtain the desired 140 hp out­put from its new­ly devel­oped high-per­for­mance
engine. The swing-axle car becomes the best-sell­ing May­bach auto­mo­bile.
Today, 119 still exist

The revival of the May­bach auto­mo­bile brand since 2002

60 years after the last May­bach auto­mo­bile was man­u­fac­tured in
Friedrichshafen, Mer­cedes-Benz (Daim­ler AG) again pre­sent­ed lux­u­ry cars with
the dou­ble M emblem in 2002 with the May­bach „M 57“ and „M 62“ mod­els. The
extrav­a­gant saloons and the „Exelero“ con­cept car were man­u­fac­tured at the
May­bach Man­u­fak­tur in Sin­delfin­gen, Ger­many until 2012. Since 2014, var­i­ous
Mer­cedes auto­mo­biles have been built under the Mer­cedes-May­bach and
respec­tive­ly the May­bach brand name as pre­mi­um vehi­cles with a par­tic­u­lar­ly
expres­sive design. Whether it is the Mer­cedes-May­bach “S‑Class”, the Mer­cedes-
May­bach “GLS” or the lim­it­ed Mer­cedes-May­bach “G‑Class” in an extrav­a­gant
Lan­daulett design, they are all equipped with inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy and
exclu­sive mate­ri­als. The Mer­cedes-May­bach “Vision 6 Coupe” con­cept car
already gives us an idea of the auto­mo­bile of the future with its extreme­ly
ele­gant and tech­noid appear­ance. Now, cel­e­brat­ing 100 years May­bach auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing, the May­bach brand presents a world pre­mière of the
lim­it­ed anniver­sary edi­tion „Edi­tion 100“. „What is good must also be beau­ti­ful.“ This was the cre­do of Wil­helm and Karl May­bach at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry.
Father and son were regard­ed as gift­ed design­ers, trail­blaz­ers of auto­mo­tive
lux­u­ry and pio­neers in mat­ters of style. With a sim­ple-sound­ing for­mu­la, they
cre­at­ed high­ly com­plex things: per­fec­tion and crafts­man­ship paired with
inno­va­tion, both tech­ni­cal­ly and in terms of work­man­ship. This is what the name
May­bach stands for to this day. The Mer­cedes-May­bach brand con­tin­ues to
devel­op, with more mod­els – soon also
elec­tric. At the IAA Mobil­i­ty 2021 in Munich, Mer­cedes-May­bach pre­sent­ed the
„Con­cept EQS“ and thus gave a pre­view of the first ful­ly elec­tric series mod­el
from 2023. The SUV will be based on the mod­u­lar archi­tec­ture for lux­u­ry — and
pre­mi­um-class elec­tric vehi­cles from Mer­cedes-Benz. Mer­cedes-May­bach is
pre­sent­ing the „Edi­tion 100“ to mark its 100th anniver­sary. A spe­cial edi­tion of
the cur­rent S‑Class and GLS mod­els, each lim­it­ed to 100 units. The spe­cial series
can be ordered from the fourth quar­ter of 2021.” (Source: Press Release, Daim­ler
AG, 28 Sep­tem­ber 2021)
Image 6: Selec­tion of May­bach and Mer­cedes-May­bach auto­mo­biles since 2002. Pho­to: Daim­ler AG

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