End of the road for Maybach

To the surprise of no one, Daimler has killed off Maybach. I’ve been around the industry long enough to remember the ridiculous launch of the brand back in summer 2002. It involved craning a car in a glass case on to the QEII’s sun deck (pictured), then taking a load of journalists on a trans-atlantic cruise with it. When they arrived in New York harbour, a helicopter lifted the case off the ship and carried it to Wall Street where the car went on show. I wasn’t important enough to get the invitation back then, but I do remember my colleagues didn’t come back on the boat – they took Concorde. At every major motor show of the five years I’ve wondered how long Maybach had left. To be honest I’m surprised it has lasted as long as it has. Maybach always had a tiny little stand, always in a corner and always in the shadow of the much larger Mercedes one. It must have been massively galling for the Germans of Daimler to see just how much more successful their rivals at BMW were being with Rolls-Royce, which always had an enormous stand. How much more successful? Since 2003, Maybach has sold 3,000 cars globally, with around 115 coming to the UK. In the same period R-R has shifted more than 12,000 units. It might sound like a daft thing to say, but somehow Maybach always lacked the class of R-R. It’s been an expensive folly.