Maybach-Analysis of Failure
 

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So Mercedes is going to cease all Maybach production by 2013. The purpose of this thread isn't to talk about whether or not it was better or worse then a Rolls Royce or Bentley as those threads abound. I'm more interested into why it failed against the competition which have been selling just fine.

Personally I liked the Maybach range because of it's restrained styling and fantastic interiors. However I feel that it's cascade failure was a result of several failures in marketing, brand image, and model diversification.


Here is a chronological list of the model Line-Up and what I think went wrong.

• Maybach 57- $341,750
• Maybach 57 S-$381,250
• Maybach 62 - $392,750
• Maybach 62 S -$432,250
• Maybach 57 Zeppelin $???
• Maybach 62 Zeppelin$???
• Maybach Landaulet -$1,350,000

• Maybach Exelero- One off, no price.

This failure of course make these statements completely ironic looking back.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/featured-cars/235023-thus-sprache-zetsche-maybach-not-going-anywhere.html

For me the biggest failure is the styling. The thing looks like an overbloated Hyundai or Kia, or some or other Asian what have you. Wasn't the thing styled in Japan? I can't help but compare it to a 600, I mean a real one, not the S-class wannabees. I dont believe there was any reason for Mercedes to revive an irellevant name from the past when they had a vehicle such as the "Grosser" in their own direct history. But whatever the reason for what they did, the most problematic thing for me is the styling. There was no reason what so ever to attempt to make the thing streamlined. Cars of such excess need to be excess-ive, with large imposing front ends etc. They can be so with class, ie the 600, or without it ie the new Rolls Royce. But they cannot be the indeterminate thing that the Maybach was, no matter what you do to the interior.

- Peter.

Whats wrong with being fuel efficient? The rolls IMHO is fugly.

The biggest reason for failure surely is the economy.

News and sales figures from the competition says otherwise which is a reason I brought this poll up.
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Personally I feel that Maybachs failure was a collection of many smaller mistakes made on the part of Daimler. Here are my picks for the 3 biggest failures-

The first mistake was the obvious lack of brand recognition. Ten years after it's failure most people still have no idea what you're talking about when you use the name Maybach but most will at least have heard about Rolls Royce. Solutions to this problem would have been tricky but perhaps it would have been better if Mercedes came up with an entirely new name for the brand as opposed to resurrecting a little known one from the 30s. I don't think that branding it as a Mercedes would have worked well.

The second mistake was that while the back seats were fantastic and unique, the cockpit and most of the controls were far too similar to the S-Class which made the entire car much less distinct. Simply using more uniquely designed switches and making some styling/layout changes to the cockpit would probably have made a difference

The third mistake was probably the biggest of all actually; Model line up. The flagship 62 was really meant to be chauffeur driven but it was given far too much emphasis over the 57. The problem with the 57 then became the fact that it wasn't much of a drivers car either due to it's similarities to the S-Class (See mistake #2) Maybach tried to rectify this with the "S" models which had more grunt but again, they were still too much of chauffeurs cars to be driven by most owners. It didn't help that they were more expensive which brings us to the Zeppelin models. The cars were basically the same but with some different touches to the interior upholstery. That would have been fine if the brand was selling well but the Maybach already had a top notch interior which really didn't need to be played around with. So what you ended up with was a more expensive version of a car that was already hard enough to sell. Finally there was the most expensive model of all, the Landaulet. My personal favorite but at over $1,000,000 a copy it certainly wasn't going to save the brand.

So what happened with the model line-up? It got more expensive and even more exclusive when what Maybach really needed was a cheaper model that could open up the brand to a wider market. This is where Mercedes really went wrong. A Maybach coupe priced between $200,000-300,000 could have made a huge difference. The example of course was the futuristic Exelero concept which people tried to buy but which was never made. Would it have really been so hard to make a cheaper toned down version of the Exelero to sell in that price range?

Nothing. And I'm sure people who were concerned about fuel efficiency had plenty of vehicles on the planet to pick from but I'd venture a guess that for folks who were able to shell out 300K minimum for a vehicle fuel efficiency just wasn't very high up on their list of priorities...

Agreed. The Maybach isn't as ugly as the Rolls, but it has no presence and a nebulous persona. Nothing about it to cause someone to do a double take, at least in my opinion.

[QUITE]The biggest reason for failure surely is the economy.[/QUOTE]

If so the Rolls and Bentley should be failing as well.

- Peter.

It was exclusive in name and price not styling.

It's a bloated S-Class, and according to Mercedes the S-Class is already the ultimate automobile, so why pay 5 times more for something that's not quite a Mercedes?

Don't think it's the economy; Rolls Royce and Bentley have never sold that many cars in their history as in the last couple of years. At any given day I see at least one or two Phantom's/Ghost and Bentleys are just as common as a S63 if not a CL550 around here.

I think it was not outlandish enough and to conservative to succeed against RR and Bentley: the ubber rich like to flaunt their wealth. And the design got outdated pretty fast.

The name is wrong. Nobody knows what a Maybach is or what the name represents.

Sixto
87 300D

It works for Lexus.

Sixto
87 300D

Agreed. Daimler revived a brand that was dead for decades when Rolls Royce and Bentley kept chugging on with their time-honored brands.

Would it have been more successful if the Maybach brand started decades ago and DB or MB developed it through those years - that way it would have been more known just like Rolls Royce or Bentley?

It was never really well established as a high end marque.


80% of people could tell you what a Rolls Royce or Bentley is. A Maybach, not so much.

Mercedes picket a little known brand out of the dust bin of history and put a fresh body on an old S class, than tripled the price.


You can buy 3 S550's for what a Maybach costs or an S65 and an S550.

While they are good they are not 3 times better than a V12 S class.

If you don't want to show off buy a V12 S class. If you want a car that screams I have more money than God and your a serf you buy a Rolls Royce or a Bentley. They have name recognition.

Than they would steal sales from the CL65 AMG, so it would be counter productive.

Mercedes is doing exactly what they need to. Killing the Maybach and moving the S class up market, well way up market in the past couple of years if you look at the prices. You used to be able to get a new S class for under $90k, now its $100k+ out the door.

Not to mention the SLR, and SL65.

I wonder if a more modern iteration of the 600 would have worked out better then the separate Maybach brand....

I think you may be right about the S-Class going 'more' upscale now that the CLS and GL have come along to fill in the 50k-90k gap