Maybach Brand is Dead - Mercedes Benz Confirms.


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It’s official: Maybach is dead – Mercedes-Benz confirms it

The German based automaker Mercedes-Benz has recently announced that the Maybach brand will be discontinued for the 2013 model year.

After Daimler AG has decided to axe Maybach back in November 2011 putting an end to months of speculation, the brand is being placed into the spotlights once again, this time by Mercedes-Benz, who has recently announced its official plans it because of its colossal failure. Mercedes-Benz has announced today (14th of August 2012) that it has no plans to continue the assembly of Maybach vehicles for the 2013 model year. The announcement has been made by using a “weird” press release where all of the Mercedes-Benz vehicles prices were announced and on the Maybach lineup “discontinued” was written besides it.

As a quick reminder, Maybach Motorenbau GmbH is a German luxury carmaker which was founded back in 1909 by Wilhelm Maybach and his son. The Maybach is based in Stuttgart, Germany, and it’s currently owned by Daimler AG who has announced back in November 2011 that it will cease the brand production by 2013. This decision has been taken almost a decade after Maybach has tried to become a profitable rival to Rolls-Royce and Bentley. The Maybach models will be replaced by new and more luxurious models from Mercedes-Benz.

R.I.P Maybach, you always be remembered by wealthy people.
 

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oh such legendary brand is dead. why did merc do this? [cry] one day they are gonna regret and bring it again when snob value of merc will decrease. its happening now anyway!
 
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The reason they claim is that low sales number for this brand does not justify to keep it in production,the next gen S-Class will come with 6 different variants which will replace this model pricewise
 
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oh such legendary brand is dead. why did merc do this? [cry] one day they are gonna regret and bring it again when snob value of merc will decrease. its happening now anyway!
The reason behind the decreasing value of merc is not the legendary Maybach but the price of their cars.

And the other reason is that their competitors like BMW, Audi etc are moving with the current market situations and pricing their cars very competitively. I know lot of people who wanted to go for Merc but ended up buying BMW or a Audi. The reason was simple they found them more VFM. And if given a choice in the lower segment i would choose a 3 series or an Audi A4 over the C class anyday (My personal opinion). But yes Mercedes is a good co and provides one of the best cars, the only thing is they are pricing it bit higher.
BMW was the best selling luxury car last year in US and before that i guess it was the A4.
The reason they claim is that low sales number for this brand does not justify to keep it in production,the next gen S-Class will come with 6 different variants which will replace this model pricewise
Yes buddy that's the biggest reason they discontinued the beast. And with their upcoming models, i guess it was a good idea to do so.
 
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Merc had already informed about this way before. Infact, in my 2013 S Class thread, I had already informed how new gen S Class will be now better, bigger & close to Maybach now as Maybach is dead. Now S Class will not only compete with 7 series but even with Bentley & RR.

Eagerly awaiting 2013 S Class.[:)]
 
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oh such legendary brand is dead. why did merc do this? [cry] one day they are gonna regret and bring it again when snob value of merc will decrease. its happening now anyway!
Have you seen or driven Rolls Royce ? It is exactly the same as BMW 7 Series, except for dashboard. Even the i-drive controls are same. Those drove said you can't even differentiate between 7 series & Rolls while driving, except for the wood & leather !! Wonder if it is worth paying 3 times the cost of 7 series or S Class. [frustration]Bentley is even worse.
 
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Found this nice article on Why Daimler's Ultra-Luxe Brand Couldn't Compete With Bentley And Rolls,

What was intended to make a big splash in the premium luxury car market has ended with a dull thud. Almost exactly a decade after it lifted the first of the big cars into New York by helicopter, Daimler AG has pulled the plug on its Maybach marque. And the odds are that few, if any, of the affluent motorists it was targeting will even notice the brand's departure.

Maybach was intended to go up against the most elite nameplates in the automotive market: Rolls-Royce and Bentley. But, in hindsight, it appears that Daimler took hubris to a new level believing that it could simply invent a new brand that would be taken seriously by the sort of buyers who want the Spirit of Ecstasy or Flying B hood ornaments on their cars.


Of course, it didn't help that the parent of Mercedes-Benz thought it could get away with using an outdated platform and then gussy it up with such features as a crystal perfume atomizer that would automatically give the car a spritz every 15 minutes.

The Maybach brand actually did have a once-glorious history. The original company was founded in 1909, just three years after Charles Rolls and Henry Royce came together, and a decade before the upstart W.O. Bentley arrived on the scene.

In its original incarnation, the company was known as Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH, and it produced engines for Zeppelin airships. But by 1919, Wilhelm Maybach's factory began rolling out some of the biggest and most elegant products ever to grace German roads. It continued through the early days of the Second World War before its plants were turned over to tank production. It never got back into the car business.

Not for 60 more years, anyway. But Maybach presented an appealing option for Daimler AG – actually, DaimlerChrysler back in the days just before the start of the new Millennium. The parent of Mercedes-Benz was the odd man out in a three-way bidding war for the Rolls-Royce Motor Co. when it was sold off by its British parent. In a confusing whir, Rolls landed with BMW, Bentley with Volkswagen AG. And, not to be left out, Daimler decided to revive the ancient Maybach.

A concept was shown in 1997; the production model, however, did not arrive until July 10, 2002, when the very first car was shipped to the States aboard the old QE2. Shortly after dawn, as the liner sailed into New York Harbor, a big Sikorsky cargo lifter swooped down, hooked up to a cargo container on the ship's deck and shot off for Manhattan, a "Maybach" banner flapping underneath.

Or, at least trying to flap. It never properly unfurled, perhaps an omen of things to come.

"We are not just presenting the car, but the brand. After this, the world will know Maybach is back," proclaimed Juergen Hubbert, the longtime head of Mercedes. But if potential luxury car buyers knew, they apparently didn't care. The ever-optimistic Hubbert, long known as "Dr. Mercedes," confidently predicted the brand would sell 1,000, perhaps even 2,000 cars, annually. In the end, Maybach struggled to find buyers for 100. In its entire decade run it barely sold as many as Daimler had hoped for in a single year.

Of course, the upper end of the luxury car market hasn't matched the optimistic expectations that abounded at the turn of the new Millennium. Back then, the industry was selling perhaps 7,000 vehicles a year priced at more than $150,000 – more than half carrying the prancing pony of the Ferrari brand. Hubbert and others anticipated sales would surge as more competition entered the market, perhaps reaching 25,000 or more.

The demographics seemed to support that expectation. The number of global billionaires was growing faster than Apple or Google stock and, certainly, they would all seem to want a Rolls, Bentley, Maybach – or something more exotic, like a Ferrari or Lamborghini – in their 10-car garages. At least, that's how it played out on paper.

Ultra-premium sales did grow, Bentley nudging the 10,000-annual mark, at its peak. But the segment, overall, failed to deliver. Why? That's anyone's guess. Tom Purves, former head of Rolls, once cautioned that many potential buyers were reluctant to be seen in something that exclusive. In some markets that would make them a target of kidnappers or terrorists. In others, it would be embarrassing, he said, to roll up to a factory you're about to close driving a Rolls-Royce.

Maybach had its own set of problems. Despite its once-proud heritage, the Double-M hood ornament simply didn't carry the gravitas of a Flying B or Spirit of Ecstasy, for one thing. And then there were the questionable technical decisions Daimler made in preparing its first Maybach models. Instead of developing a unique, state-of-the-art platform, the German maker lifted the prior-generation S-Class architecture. True, Maybach tried to overcome that deficit with fancy features like the M62's business jet-style back seat and a trick glass roof that could be switched from clear to opaque with the touch of a button.

But even that cut crystal atomizer in the recent Zeppelin model couldn't make the Maybach smell sweet enough to get many one-percenters into its showrooms. By late 2011, Daimler had had enough. The maker announced it would phase out the brand – which it has now done quicker than expected with last month's quiet end to Maybach production.

Mercedes' new U.S. boss, Steve Cannon, is optimistic the brand can cover the loss of the ultra-luxury line with additional versions of the all-new S-Class coming next year, including the S600 Pullman slated for 2014. He admits a few of those existing Maybach owners might go elsewhere when it's time for a trade-in. But considering how few were ever sold, it's likely Daimler won't even notice.

Postmortem: Maybach meets its maker
 
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Thanks for link visran.
Though I am big fan of Merc, Maybach never appealed to me. Problem was this car was out of production for long time because of which many people never came to know about this car at first place.

I never liked rolls nor bentley in any case. These are more of show off type of cars, waste of money. Add some more money and buy a chopper.
 
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Even i am not a big fan of Maybach, probably it has to do with the design language which Maybach used it was too bland and ugly for my liking.
 

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