1924: The Maybach Wagon Adventure to Italy — A photo documentation by Karl August Kroth

As the sum­mer vaca­tion sea­son 2022 winds down, some of you sure­ly went to your vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion by auto­mo­bile in a com­fort­able way and on well-built roads. Maybe even to Italy, one of the prime vaca­tion des­ti­na­tions for many peo­ple. But how stren­u­ous was such a jour­ney by auto­mo­bile in the 1920s, when mobil­i­ty was still in its ear­ly days? A trav­el pho­to (dat­ed 1924) tells the sto­ry: it is part of the Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foundation’s museum-collection.

Doc­tor Karl-August Kroth shares his expe­ri­ences regard­ing his excit­ing jour­ney from Munich (Ger­many) to Paler­mo, Sici­ly (Italy) from the per­spec­tive of an auto­mo­bile enthu­si­ast – through­out the entire trip and as a May­bach dri­ver. His con­clu­sion after a jour­ney of incred­i­ble 2,500 kilo­me­ters „The May­bach car is a sedan on wheels“ (Kroth, Karl August, Mit dem Kraft­wa­gen nach Sizilien. In: Der Motor­fahrer No. 19, 1924). Regard­less of whether the steep­est moun­tains had to be climbed or descend­ed, noth­ing seemed to cause the two May­bach cars of type ²²⁄₇₀ hp — W 3 any difficulties.

Pho­to col­lage „Zur Tar­ga Flo­rio 1924“. Paper, print­ed, Muse­um-Col­lec­tion: Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foundation

In Sep­tem­ber 1921, the May­bach-Motoren­bau com­pa­ny pre­sent­ed the first May­bach pas­sen­ger car with the type of des­ig­na­tion „22 /​70 hp“ — also known as „W 3“ at the Inter­na­tion­al Motor Show in Berlin, Ger­many. Equipped with many tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions, such as the four-wheel brak­ing, the vehi­cle was one of the safest but also one most expen­sive auto­mo­biles of its time. The elab­o­rate con­struc­tion of the engine as well as the gen­er­ous­ly built chas­sis tes­ti­fy to the men­tal­i­ty accord­ing to which pres­ti­gious auto­mo­biles were built in Friedrichshafen from then on mov­ing for­ward: „Only cre­ate the best from the best“ (Karl May­bach). Unfor­tu­nate­ly, no „W 3“ auto­mo­bile sur­vived to our knowl­edge at this time.

Seem­ing­ly effort­less­ly, the engine man­aged to embrace and over­come all climbs in the moun­tains with the direct gear. If the direct gear was not suf­fi­cient, the reduc­tion was engaged noise­less­ly. Per­haps the smooth ride was also pos­si­ble due to the skills and expe­ri­ence of the May­bach dri­ver, Anton Zwick, who is well known to us. Mr. Zwick was an offi­cial dri­ver for the May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH and enjoyed con­sid­er­able suc­cess in rac­ing in the 1920s and 1930s. Mean­while, a num­ber of cars from oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers were parked on the road­side with their radi­a­tors steam­ing and their hoods open. August Kroth also praised the fab­u­lous sus­pen­sion of the two May­bach cars. Since the cars have very good road-hold­ing due to their wide wheel­base and heavy weight, it was pos­si­ble to dri­ve through some curves at over 70 km/​h.

The trav­el group also cov­ered the dif­fi­cult dis­tance between Naples and Paler­mo, Italy not by ship as usu­al, but with the May­bach cars on the worst roads, which led through the most remote areas. Five days of con­tin­u­ous trav­el, some­times 700 kilo­me­ters at a stretch, and not the slight­est repair had to be made to the May­bach car. Only on day six did a flat tire cause a short break.

Accord­ing to Karl August Kroth, the May­bach car gave the trav­el group unique impres­sions of Italy that only a few peo­ple of their time had the chance to expe­ri­ence. They were able to cross Italy from North to South. To vis­it areas whose unique beau­ty were known even to the fewest Ital­ians, let alone the usu­al tourists.