Classicworld Friedrichshafen 2023: Maybach automobile experience with all senses

The 14^th edi­tion of the „Clas­sic World Lake Con­stance“ took place in Friedrichshafen from May 5^th to 7^th 2023. For three days, the Friedrichshafen Exhi­bi­tion Cen­ter was ded­i­cat­ed to the excit­ing theme of his­tor­i­cal vehi­cles and vin­tage cars — expe­ri­enc­ing them: on land, water, and in the air. Dur­ing the expo at the May­bach booth the audi­ence could explore a range of his­tor­i­cal cars, motor­cy­cles, boats, air­planes, and exclu­sive vin­tage auto­mo­biles . The inter­est was immense, with a total of 800 exhibitors and 37,000 vis­i­tors from all over Europe, accord­ing to the trade show orga­niz­er. There­fore, trade show direc­tor Klaus Well­mann sum­ma­rized a very pos­i­tive conclusion:

„The Clas­sic World Lake Con­stance was a resound­ing suc­cess. Even pre-COVID lev­els were achieved. Nowhere else can you expe­ri­ence his­tor­i­cal mobil­i­ty in such a dynam­ic vari­ety like in Friedrichshafen“. And vin­tage car enthu­si­asts are well aware that Friedrichshafen (Lake Con­stance) is insep­a­ra­bly linked to the ori­gins of the May­bach engine and auto­mo­bile brand.

Sev­er­al weeks in advance, the exhib­it prepa­ra­tions took place at the Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion and the Friends of the May­bach Muse­um Association.

The key exhib­it theme of the May­bach booth had to be deter­mined, and we con­nect­ed with the own­ers of mul­ti­ple May­bach auto­mo­biles from our net­work and we invit­ed them to par­tic­i­pate with their beau­ti­ful vehi­cles. Once again, we received sup­port from Georg Schnep­per who main­tains excel­lent con­nec­tions with the May­bach Club and knows exact­ly which his­tor­i­cal May­bach vehi­cles are suit­able and avail­able for dis­play at a spe­cif­ic car show. Addi­tion­al­ly, the trade show fur­ni­ture and tech­ni­cal equip­ment had to be retrieved and ser­viced from our stor­age facil­i­ties, and new fur­ni­ture had to be built. Final­ly, many work­ing hours were ded­i­cat­ed to the cre­ation of exhi­bi­tion visu­als and dis­play texts which were pre­pared by our muse­um team in Friedrichshafen.

This year, we chose the excit­ing theme „The May­bach High-Per­for­mance Engine of 1935 and the May­bach Swing-Axle Car­riage“ due to the exten­sive May­bach auto­mo­tive his­to­ry. For this pur­pose, we select­ed two objects as high­lights from the muse­um col­lec­tions of the Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion and the Friends of the May­bach Muse­um Asso­ci­a­tion, and proud­ly pre­sent­ed them by using an elab­o­rate pho­to backdrop.

On the one hand, it was a ful­ly func­tion­al engine mod­el of the May­bach auto­mo­bile Type SW 38 which was pro­vid­ed by the Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion. Thanks to Gün­ter Lang­wald’s tech­ni­cal knowl­edge and crafts­man­ship, not only was the mod­el brought back into oper­a­tion after a long peri­od of inac­tiv­i­ty, but the engine was also demon­strat­ed to the inter­est­ed pub­lic through­out the entire three days of the trade fair. When­ev­er the engine was loud­ly start­ed and the air filled with the smell of gaso­line, it cre­at­ed a spe­cial effect and great sen­sa­tion at our booth, attract­ing many more vis­i­tors who stopped by to see the spec­ta­cle. The engine was pre­sent­ed in all its tech­ni­cal and his­tor­i­cal details. The high-per­for­mance engine type HL 35, designed by May­bach in 1935, was specif­i­cal­ly devel­oped to meet the demands of the grow­ing high­way traf­fic. Equipped with the dual-speed trans­mis­sion from May­bach, a dual Solex car­bu­re­tor, and over­head camshafts, the May­bach engine out­per­formed its com­peti­tors in many aspects. The qual­i­ty of gaso­line dete­ri­o­rat­ed due to the mis­man­age­ment of the Nazi régime. In order to ensure the 140 horse pow­er of the HL 35 engine, the dis­place­ment was grad­u­al­ly increased to 3.8 liters (HL 38) in 1936 and 4.2 liters (HL 42) in 1939.

On the oth­er hand, we exhib­it­ed a rare train­ing mod­el of a swing-axle car­riage chas­sis from the object inven­to­ry of the muse­um col­lec­tion of the Friends of the May­bach Muse­um Asso­ci­a­tion. In the 1930s, appren­tices at May­bach Motoren­bau GmbH were able to learn the tech­ni­cal func­tion­ing of the swing-axle car­riage chas­sis using this mod­el. Now, 90 years lat­er, we once again pro­vid­ed a close-up expe­ri­ence of the unique tech­ni­cal func­tion­al­i­ties of that time for vin­tage car enthu­si­asts in Friedrichshafen

In 1935, May­bach unveiled the com­plete­ly redesigned swing-axle car­riage chas­sis with state-of-the-art sus­pen­sion tech­nol­o­gy. The front wheels are inde­pen­dent­ly sus­pend­ed, allow­ing them to move autonomous­ly, while the dri­ve shafts of the rear wheels are mount­ed on swing­ing half-axles. This design allows for small wheel impacts to be absorbed by spi­ral springs, while larg­er wheel move­ments are trans­ferred to the low-bed frame through leaf springs. As a result, road han­dling, brak­ing per­for­mance, and vibra­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics are sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved. May­bach vehi­cles of the SW 35, SW 38, and SW 42 mod­els are among the safest and smoothest-run­ning of their time.

The key focus of our audi­ence at the May­bach booth was gen­uine­ly on the two orig­i­nal pre­served May­bach vehi­cles, the SW 38 and SW 35 mod­els. The first vehi­cle is a con­vert­ible body, craft­ed by the coach­builder “Spohn” in Ravens­burg, built in 1937. This car has par­tic­i­pat­ed in numer­ous clas­sic car tour­na­ments and is reg­u­lar­ly seen around Lake Con­stance. The sec­ond vehi­cle at our booth was a 1935 May­bach Pull­man lim­ou­sine, also bod­ied by Spohn. This car is one of the ear­li­est pro­duced vehi­cles in the swing-axle car­riage series and is part of the “Steim” auto­mo­bile col­lec­tion. We high­ly rec­om­mend a vis­it to the Steim auto­mo­bile col­lec­tion in Scham­berg, Ger­many, to every­one in our com­mu­ni­ty. In addi­tion to the May­bach SW 35, there are many oth­er out­stand­ing his­tor­i­cal auto­mo­biles to admire and explore. Both vehi­cles at our booth at the Klas­sik­welt Bodensee were dri­ven to Friedrichshafen under their own pow­er, were spot­ted and warm­ly greet­ed by the first vin­tage car enthu­si­asts long before the booth doors opened.

For those of you who could­n’t make it to the Klas­sik­welt Bodensee in Friedrichshafen this year, we have com­piled a video show­cas­ing the high­lights at the May­bach booth. Enjoy watch­ing it — with com­pli­ments of the exhi­bi­tion team at the Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foundation.