| Wilhelm Maybach was one of the great German car pioneers, alongside Benz, Daimler and Otto. Of interest he trained as a mechanic under Gottlieb Daimler. When Daimler became chief engineer at Deutz in 1872, he lost no time in appointing Maybach as his chief draughtsman. The two men had known each other for years and their wives had been school friends.
Three years after Daimler joined Deutz, Nikolaus-August Otto patented a four-stroke engine which has the same cycle of operation as every one of its type made until today. This however was powered by coal gas and was meant to be used as a stationary engine.
Ten years later, both Daimler and Maybach left Deutz to develop the petrol engine. Maybach continued to work for the same company, which today is known as Mercedes, after Daimler's death. Maybach's selective gear change on the 1901 Mercedes improved control of the car, and was widely copied on both sides of the Atlantic. By one of those quirks of fate, Maybach, renamed MTU, is now part of the Mercedes-Benz group once more.
In 1907 Wilhelm Maybach left Daimler to set up a new company with Count Zeppelin. The two men made and sold engines for planes and airships before moving on to automotive engines, all of which were designed by Karl Maybach, Wilhelm's son. When Wilhelm Maybach introduced mechanically operated inlet valves, he greatly raised the potential of the petrol engine. A mechanically operated inlet valve finally permitted unlimited development of engine speeds.
In 1921, Maybach set up his own car company where his interest in gearbox design came to the fore. In most car designs the gearbox had received little attention. The sliding-pinion system developed back in 1891 still prevailed. Ford had clung to the epicyclic two-speed transmission and Maybach used this design in its two-speed six-cylinder 5.7-litre and 6.9-litre introductory models W3 and W5, from 1921 to 1928.
Maybach followed this with the enormously complicated Doppelschnellgang, where four forward speeds were each operable on two ratios, giving eight forward speeds and, if of any use, four in reverse. This gearbox, used in the V-12 Maybach Zepplin seemed a needless feature since its engine delivered 150kW with turbine like smoothness.
However, of all the beautiful luxury cars designed and produced by Maybach, the best were the series DS6, 7 and 8 all with sturdy and powerful V-12 engines. Every care was taken in the design of these cars, which were teeming with creature comforts, even a hot-water heating system to keep the feet of passengers warm and snug while remaining every bit as elegant as the Rolls-Royce. |