Pop-Up Exhibition to Honor and Celebrate 100 Years of Maybach Automobile 1921 – 2021

The 100 years of May­bach cel­e­bra­tion in Friedrichshafen from Sep­tem­ber 23^rd to Octo­ber 2^nd 2021 was inspir­ing and a thought­ful trib­ute to Wil­helm and Karl Maybach’s accom­plish­ments and how they served to shape the mod­ern world.

There were dif­fer­ent approach­es the May­bach Foun­da­tion uti­lized to visu­al­ize the com­plex­i­ty of infor­ma­tion that goes into the 100-year his­to­ry of one of the most known names in terms of engi­neer­ing and auto­mo­biles: May­bach! 

The exhi­bi­tion in Friedrichshafen, Ger­many took place at Café Gessler 1862 — a very icon­ic and his­toric place in Friedrichshafen that close­ly cor­re­lates with the his­to­ry of Maybach.

The above dis­play show­cas­es the front win­dow of Café Gessler which visu­al­izes one of the first cars equipped with May­bach engi­neer­ing and the Vision 6 which was a dis­tinct con­cept car by Daim­ler AG in 2017. 

The Gessler 1862 is not an exhi­bi­tion or event facil­i­ty per se, but a won­der­ful book­store and café: Based on the café atmos­phere, paper place­mats were devel­oped that were laid out on the café tables to engage the audi­ence – and encour­age vis­i­tors who may not have been famil­iar with the May­bach name and engi­neer­ing accomplishments.

The key con­tent-relat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion lev­el was clas­sic, but inter­ac­tive exhi­bi­tion boards that were engag­ing for the visitor.

There was a sig­nif­i­cant amount of edu­ca­tion­al con­tent and images to ensure the exhi­bi­tion is not only inter­est­ing but brought new and unknown insights about the unique May­bach his­to­ry. We cre­at­ed vir­tu­al inter­faces and QR codes with incred­i­ble May­bach con­tent. The dig­i­tal­ized mate­ri­als rep­re­sent­ed an addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about May­bach. Based on the most recent par­tic­i­pant obser­va­tions dur­ing the time of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the recog­ni­tion of QR codes is accept­ed as such and can inde­pen­dent­ly call up the dig­i­tal­ly stored infor­ma­tion using a smart­phone in a touch less manner.

The pre­sen­ta­tion about the May­bach com­pa­ny his­to­ry, was accom­plished by depict­ing select­ed engines from vehi­cles on water, on land and in the air — as well as the pre­sen­ta­tion of tru­ly icon­ic Michael Schwab posters.

Over­all, the exhi­bi­tion was an hon­or­able con­tri­bu­tion to the accom­plish­ments of our 100-year May­bach auto­mo­biles and oth­er vehi­cles. Many atten­dees joined us to enjoy this his­toric event and it real­ly did the 100 years of May­bach jus­tice. Many con­trib­u­tors and enthu­si­asts who had part in Maybach’s his­to­ry also vis­it­ed the exhi­bi­tion, which made this event even more spe­cial (a spe­cial Thank you goes to the May­bach Fre­un­deskreis e.V. and its Board Mem­bers – many of them joined the event). Addi­tion­al­ly, we had inspir­ing speech­es from Ulrich Schmid-May­bach (via a dig­i­tal video from San Fran­cis­co) and Dr. Corin­na Basler regard­ing the 100 years of May­bach celebration.