We’re celebrating 175 Years Wilhelm Maybach!

A Difficult Start Into Life

Wil­helm May­bach was born 175 years ago on Feb­ru­ary 9^th, 1846 in Heil­bronn. At the age of only ten, he was an orphan and was placed in the care of the the­olo­gian and social reformer Gus­tav Wern­er and found a new home at the ‘Bruder­haus’ in Reut­lin­gen. In 1861, Wil­helm began his appren­tice­ship as a tech­ni­cal drafts­man in the ‘Bruder­haus’ machine fac­to­ry where he met Got­tlieb Daim­ler. Wil­helm May­bach sub­se­quent­ly became one of the most impor­tant fig­ures in the his­to­ry of the automobile.

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Gottlieb Daimler’s Chief Constructor

Work­ing as Got­tlieb Daim­ler’s chief con­struc­tor at the Deutz gas engine fac­to­ry in Cologne, Wil­helm May­bach con­tributed to the inter­na­tion­al suc­cess of the Otto engine by redesign­ing it in 1873. The con­ge­nial Daim­ler-May­bach duo became inde­pen­dent in Cannstatt in 1882. In a green­house, May­bach con­struct­ed the first high-speed sin­gle-cylin­der four-stroke engine, lat­er the so-called ˈGrand­fa­ther Clockˈ as well as the ˈRid­ing Carˈ and in 1886 the ˈDaim­ler Motor Car­riageˈ. The auto­mo­bile has final­ly been invented!

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The King of Designers

Around 1900, Wil­helm May­bach designed pio­neer­ing engines and vehi­cles that have shaped mobil­i­ty and auto­mo­tive engi­neer­ing to this day. In 1895, Daim­ler Motor Cor­po­ra­tion began the pro­duc­tion of pas­sen­ger cars with May­bachs Phoenix engines. In 1900, the con­sul and motorist Emil Jellinek com­mis­sioned a com­plete­ly new car for rac­ing pur­pos­es. May­bach’s response: a 90 km/​h vehi­cle with 35 hp that laid the foun­da­tions of the mod­ern auto­mo­bile — the Mer­cedes I.

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Start of a New Era

Wil­helm May­bach estab­lished Air­ship Motor Works GmbH in Bissin­gen togeth­er with Graf von Zep­pelin in 1909, lay­ing the foun­da­tion stone for anoth­er May­bach suc­cess sto­ry. His son Karl took over the man­age­ment and tech­ni­cal lead­er­ship of the young com­pa­ny, which moved to Friedrichshafen in 1912. Here, in the years that fol­lowed, Karl May­bach’s inge­nious designs sparked the cre­ation of a world-class com­pa­ny — May­bach-Motor-Works. Wil­helm May­bach died in Cannstatt on Decem­ber 29^th, 1929.

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The Maybach Museum Collection in Friedrichshafen & Maybach Virtual Museum

In 2015, the Fre­un­deskreis May­bach Muse­um e.V. was found­ed under the aus­pices of the Wil­helm & Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion. The com­mon goal is to share the his­to­ry of May­bach engine con­struc­tion in Friedrichshafen and the cul­ture of val­ues of the ˈMay­bäch­lerˈ. More than 2,500 objects and var­i­ous con­tem­po­rary wit­ness inter­views are already in our own col­lec­tion to set up a muse­um exhi­bi­tion. Do you have fur­ther con­tem­po­rary tes­ti­monies or mem­o­ries about the May­bach his­to­ry? Feel free to con­tact us via museum@​maybach.​org!

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Posters

We’ve also devel­oped cor­re­spond­ing posters for each of the five fly­ers. In case you’d like to receive one or more of our posters, please send an email to foundation@​maybach.​org.