sibling rivalry
February 8th, 2006A few years back when everyone was gawking at the first Maybach to hit the dealer I just stood there shaking my head. It was too big to seem drivable, too like the S class inside to feel special.
If anything the Maybach proved what I’d been trying to warn people of: how substandard the rest of the Mercedes line had become since the mid-90s. The last-generation S class was considered too weak in its body structure to meet the Maybach’s goals for refinement and safety so the car was based on the slab-sided, heavy, over-the-top S class of the early 90s.
In this Top Gear piece Paul Horrell reminds me why he’s one of my favorite writers and the Maybach is one of my least favorite cars.
Here are some excerpts:
Why do I take such a harsh view of the Maybach? Because it’s so unimaginative. It’s simply a Mercedes, but bigger, faster, flasher, more luxurious… It doesn’t have the unique architecture of an Arnage or Phantom, or their elevated eyepoint. And as Maybach has already found, if you don’t differentiate it from the rest of the range, when the S-Class moves on – with Pre-Safe and night vision and all the rest – the Maybach gets left behind. Whereas the Phantom and Arnage have never pretended they’re about technology or toys, and so they stand aloof and unaffected by what’s going on among the 7-Series and Audi A8…
The Maybach won’t die any time soon. It has a 10-year lifespan, and it’s three-years-old, so it’s another four years before the critical moment when they have to decide whether or not to develop a successor…
It’s supposed to be the best effort in history from the people who, don’t forget, actually invented the car – and yet it’s not as good as the S-Class. It’s wildly expensive at £289,090, yet oddly incapable of moving people. It’s all substance and no meaning.