The super-luxury Maybach will be coming here when it's launched in the rest of the world in 2003, Mercedes-Benz Canada says.
Indeed, the president of the local Mercedes-Benz company, Ernst Lieb, says he already has a small number of serious deposits on hand.for the sedan that's going to cost more than most family houses. It will certainly go beyond $250,000.
If you've never heard of Maybach, you're not alone. It's essentially a legendary brand that few people have heard of, since it enjoyed the peak of its fame during the 1920s and 1930s. It was the kind of car that the Third Reich deemed appropriate for transporting Neville Chamberlain back and forth to his famous meetings with Adolf Hitler in Munich just before the Second World War. I know this, since I rode in that very car around the Frankfurt area a couple of years ago.
The German company intends to use the Maybach name "to emphasize the unique nature of our future premium-quality product," says Juergen Hubbert, the board member in charge of the Mercedes-Benz and smart car division for DaimlerChrysler AG. Hubbert also wants it "to carry on the tradition of a legendary marque, whose exciting cars were the ultimate in design and technical perfection in the years between 1921 and 1940."
Hubbert says those are exactly the goals his company is pursuing in the development of the new Maybach. "Based on state-of-the-art Mercedes technology," he says, "these vehicles will set new standards in the world of premium cars." The proprietors of Rolls-Royce and Bentley would dispute this, of course, but they are BMW and VW, respectively, but it's not likely that would change Hubbert's mind.