Daimler to kill off Maybach

The Maybach nameplate was first revived after Daimler showcased a concept luxury sedan at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show, which developed into the Maybach 57 and 62 limousines. The company had initially targeted annual sales of 2,000 cars annually, with half of them in the U.S.

However, a decade on, Maybach has not reached its projected sales targets, and Daimler is now looking to kill off the classic marque. It claims that the next-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class is good enough to replace the Maybach limousine.

“It would not make sense to develop a successor model”, Daimler’s Dieter Zetsche said in an interview with German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The coming S-Class is in such a way a superior vehicle that it can replace the Maybach.”

Despite the Maybach failure, Zetsche told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Mercedes-Benz is readying itself for a comeback: “Mercedes is now mounting the attack in the high-end segment. We have always dominated this segment and that should continue to be the case. We don’t want to wait until the others pull ahead.”