All Entries Tagged With: "57"
On The Street: Maybach 62S in New York
By Gunnar Heinrich
PROVIDING further evidence that, yes, Maybachs do still roam the Earth along with the rest of traffic, yours encountered a new black /black 62S in a recent soujourn to New York.
That the Maybach didn’t even have NY state livery tags, was a promising sign indeed!
Sadly, as night had fallen I wasn’t able to capture photographically the rare limo in all its W140-Sonderklasse-platformed glory. Yet, as I drove alongside the road yacht block for block (Carparazzo? Moi?), I took visual notes which I’ll impart to you herein.
The subtle changes of detail and trim on the Maybach 62S grant a surprisingly freshened appearance over your garden variety 57 or 62 of some years and even more miles. The black coat was as jet noire as a Steinway & Sons.
The 20″ alloys along with those distinctive taillights are a boon to the appearance,too. Unifying both lamps for an über sense of occasion, Maybach channels a little bit of Porsche Carrera with a horizontal red bar of LEDs.
Incidentally, one Maybach tail lamp can be had on eBay for $2,250.
I should mention the vehicle imparts a large sense of, well, mass.
From an E46 gen. BMW 3er’s drivers seat, my line of sight seemed on the same plane as the Maybach’s doorhandle, such was the limo’s apparent loft.
Few are to be seen outside metro areas, as Bentley Continental GTs and Flying Spurs and Crewe-era Royces reign supreme in the Constitution State. Looking back, yours has only personally spied Maybachs in urban areas (DC, NYC, Paris)
That said, Phantom to Maybach sightings that night in Gotham were a bit uneven: 4 to 1.
“Mercedes Maybach”
Might it have been the 62S?
By Gunnar Heinrich
WEDGED somewhere between accounts of Silvio Berlusconi’s feminine cohorts and Christopher Hitchens’ take on Monty Python, Vanity Fair posted one of the mag’s signature profiles on Wallis Annenberg, socialite-philanthropist-Maybach owner.
Here’s how VF described Ms. Annenberg, her canine compatriots, and her car:
“Reportedly worth $200 million herself, she is sitting in the backseat of her chauffeured Mercedes Maybach, along with her three Maltese- Muffet, Switters, and Coco.”
VF didn’t publish pictures of the Maybach (hopefully two-toned) nor did they account for whether the German limo was a 62, 62S, Zeppellin or 57, etc.
And why would they? What do any of those numbers mean, truly, to their core readership?
Referring to an S-Class Mercedes or a Mercedes SL, on the other hand, would register with far more people. So too, likely, for Maybach’s main competition – the Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Tellingly the story’s scribe, Bob Colacello, used “Mercedes” as the qualifier for “Maybach”. Indeed, what après tous would the designator “600″ have meant without the prefix “Mercedes-Benz”?
So, too, for Maybach. All these years later.
Maybach Idles
Zeppelin.
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Daimler, AG
WERE it not for music videos, Punk’d, and the Robb Report earlier this decade, mentioning the name “Maybach” would’ve registered with the American car buyer as strongly as it would’ve when citing those other high-brow notables Auto Union and Lagonda.
That is to say, it would’ve barely made a dent.
Certainly, the Maybach 62′s launch created a small media frenzy when it sailed into New York harbor aboard a Cunard ship in 2002. It was then positioned as DaimlerChrysler’s halo marque, a tribute to bespoke motoring that would carry the best technological and engineering facets of Mercedes-Benz forward into a ultra exclusive heir apparent to the (W100) 600.
But that media buzz had its fifteen. Depreciation has hit the marque as well as used car residuals. Daimler rivals Audi-VW and BMW are forging ahead with Bentley and Rolls-Royce, respectively. Poor Maybach, with all its lore, is left in the dust.
If you perform a Google search using the keywords “Maybach club” or “Maybach car club”, you get paid-for adlinks to Inside Line and your local Mercedes-Benz dealer. The M-100 club, a group of 600, 300SEL 6.3 and 450SEL 6.9 owners certainly haven’t extended their role to including Maybach 57 owners.
So there’s no fan base, official or otherwise. The sales numbers are too low. The clientele too rarefied or secretive. The Zeppelin, which debuted in Frankfurt, is a 57S (or 62S) that features a tweaked engine, a perfumed cabin air atomizer, and dark wood paneling.
This all leads us to ask: how long will Daimler let this noble marque idle?
