Price No Object
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday November 8, 2002
In 2002, the world's most expensive sedan still drives on four wheels and consumes fossil fuel. Joshua Dowling reports the $1 million Maybach is more about marketing and exclusivity than motoring breakthroughs.
How can a car, even one with reclining rear seats, cost $1 million? The car is only part of the story. Mercedes-Benz's new super-luxury limousine, which marks the revival of the Maybach brand from its
70-year hibernation, is more about marketing than motoring breakthroughs.
What you're paying for is exclusivity and service, from the sales demonstration on a $30,000 laptop to the handover, celebrated with fine dining and champagne and commemorated with a personal letter from Professor Jurgen Hubbert, the head of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars..
Buyers with this sort of money presumably already have access to good restaurants and sufficient sycophants. What else does the Maybach offer?
"Everybody is asking how we got to this price, and the answer is exclusivity," said Dr Hans-Joachim Scopf, a director on the Mercedes-Benz passenger cars board.
"Exclusiveness has its price and this is it. We do not exactly know how many we will sell but we do feel comfortable with this price range."
The maker has settled on 1000 Maybachs a year, each made to order.
Mercedes has built the Maybach because it reckons the world can afford it. By its calculations, "high net worth individuals" earning at least $30 million-plus annually can afford such four-wheeled extravagance.
Its German rivals are also in a lather over super-luxury limousines - and matching profit margins. BMW is reviving Rolls-Royce and VW is now responsible for the Bentley brand.
Mercedes appears to have another objective, however.
Given the sales success of its range, stretching from the A Class city car to the
S Class limousine, it is in danger of becoming mainstream.
According to its own figures, in the past four years Mercedes has sold 318,000 S Class sedans worldwide, against 161,000 BMW
7 Series and 48,000 Audi A8s. Putting a positive spin on the statistics, the maker says such popularity gives it "an excellent base from which to expand".
"We have the contacts with the right people, we've been selling them cars for decades," says spokesman Johannes Reifenrath.
"Some customers of our most expensive
S Class say there is nothing wrong with their S600 but they want more exclusivity."
Target buyers are men with big egos and big bank balances. An oil-rich customer reportedly bought four. Some Chinese and Middle Eastern customers have bought cars for their wives - to be chauffeured.
Mercedes estimates about 60 per cent of Maybach buyers won't get behind the wheel. Some, apparently, don't even have a licence.
All have one thing in common: they want to be individual. The Maybach is like a handmade piece of jewellery, the company says, no two will be the same unless they are ordered by the customer to be identical. "You don't buy a Maybach, you have it built for you," is the official line.
There are 17 factory exterior colours but the palette is limited only by the owner's imagination.
"Even if the colour of the neck tie is the only colour you want, we will match it," the maker says. The interior uses 100 handcrafted pieces of wood.
Perhaps the biggest clue to the typical buyer lies in the optional glass roof, which makes it easier to see the rear occupants during the day - and which lights up like an auditorium at night.
Mercedes says its engineers did more than half their testing from the back seat. In the Maybach 62, the longer-wheelbase 6.2-metre version, that's almost a remote assignment. With the recliner seats and the footrest at full stretch, you still can't reach the chauffeur's seat back.
The rear door is so long that there is a button inside to activate an electric motor to pull the door shut. As we discovered in the Hamburg shopping precinct, when open the door can block a narrow strasse.
Inside, the only thing missing is a pre-flight safety check. If the Maybach 62 were any longer it would need landing lights.
There are 10 airbags: dual front bags and, in the rear, two in each seat and two head protection airbags each side.The recliner seat and belt meet safety requirements whether laid back or fully upright.
Six super-computers manage the engine, gearbox, safety systems, air-conditioning and entertainment functions. Mercedes says even the least powerful computer is bigger than that used in the original Space Shuttle.
The 100-plus electric servo motors no doubt contribute to the considerable weight. Each seat has seven motors for adjustment, another four are used for ventilation and heating. There are 528 LEDs in the tail-lights.
The overwhelming majority of components are exclusive to the Maybach but Mercedes input is still evident.
The key, as used in Mercedes passenger cars, is set apart by a large chrome sleeve. The seat adjustment switches and volume controls, also familiar from regular Mercedes sedans, have a high-gloss finish - dubbed "piano black" to keep marketers and customers happy.
There are no Benz badges in sight. The double-M Maybach symbol sits haughtily on the bonnet (it is so large that at high speeds the pressure of the wind pushes it back) and bootlid.
The symbol is even etched into the lenses of the Xenon gas-discharge headlights. The headlights project small dots on the road immediately in front of the car (and out of the driver's view) to form part of an M shape, prompting reactions from other motorists when stuck in the traffic.
Most Germans were happy to see the Maybach but clearly not everyone was impressed by its intimidating presence.
One man, with his family loaded into a humble wagon with a caravan in tow, laughed, pointed at the headlight and yelled "kaput" as we inched along in stop-start traffic.
There was nothing wrong with the headlight but our guide said it was German humour: it probably made meinherr feel better that the driver of a Maybach might be worried there was something wrong with such an expensive car.
DRIVE'S IMPRESSION
How does a $1 million car drive? Pretty much like a $200,000 one - that is, the S Class stablemate. There is no doubt the Maybach is excellence on wheels but the price does not make it five times better than the S Class. In fact, it speaks volumes about how good the regular Mercedes limousine is in the first place.
It is almost impossible to assess it in terms of value because only the buyer can measure the intangibles, the "feel-good factor".
And it seems almost unfair to rate it dynamically, because buyers probably will join this elite club more for the view from the rear seat than for what it is like to drive.
The superb twin-turbo 5.5-litre V12 (with 405kW and 900Nm) makes light work of the heavy body, pushing the Maybach 57 to a claimed 0-100kmh time of 5.2 seconds (and 5.4 secs for the longer version).
Under normal throttle, the car accelerates ever-so-gently from rest. The automatic transmission delays the power delivery for optimum passenger comfort - you don't want to spill the bubbly. The feeling is akin to a boat being pushed off rather than a neck-snapping jolt.
Boating analogies don't end there, for the car can feel ponderous to drive. Even in sports mode the air suspension feels floaty and the car leans heavily in corners. Mercedes rightly argues that most Maybachs will be driven sedately by professional drivers, who won't fail to notice the car's
2.7 tonnes when negotiating bends or simply changing lanes.
The downside to the luxury length is that quick changes of direction at speed tend to pitch rear occupants about.
At Australian freeway speeds, the Maybach is eerily quiet; at German autobahn velocity, the wind noise is akin to that of a regular luxury sedan travelling at half the pace. (A personal speedometer mounted in the rear roof eliminates guesswork for occupants.)
The steering feels almost too light and, even at modest speeds, it takes a moment for the car to regain composure.
In a straight line the Maybach feels unstoppable, accelerating like a train. It cruises as readily at 120kmh as it does at twice that speed.
Reversing a car 6.2 metres long is daunting, more so when the rear windscreen is curtained, but the Maybach has rear parking sensors to detect nearby obstacles.
There's a fair chance Maybach drivers will become adept at reversing the car. With a 14.8-metre turning circle, there won't be too many quick U-turns.
BACK WHEN
Mercedes-Benz and Maybach are linked from the first days of motoring. In 1901, Wilhelm Maybach - Gottlieb Daimler's engineer - designed what is widely regarded as the first modern passenger car. (Karl Benz had applied for a patent in 1896.) Later, Maybach and son Karl built powerful engines for Count Zeppelin's airships. In the '20s and '30s, Karl Maybach designed and built about 1800 luxury cars. The Benz and Daimler companies merged in 1926.
Bob Jennings
WHAT, WHERE
Among 70 Maybach dealers globally, there will be Maybach centres at Mercedes-Benz dealerships in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. The US is expected to account for 40 per cent of sales. The relatively shorter Maybach 57 (it is 5.7 metres long) is expected to take 60 per cent of sales worldwide and 80 per cent in the US - because most owners will drive themselves. Left-hand-drive deliveries begin next month, right-hand-drive
in March.
HOW MUCH
In Australia, the Maybach 62 will cost $900,000 (the tax and import duty component will be $232,000). Add registration and stamp duty and the price will exceed
$1 million. Then there is the options list. Metal champagne flutes and chiller are standard but fold-out tables, seat-back pockets and glass roof are among the extras. An armoured version will be available in June.
WHO'S WHO
Mercedes-Benz is coy when it comes to naming names. It says it won't reveal the identity of its customers because it is a "business agreement". Kings and heads of state are on its order list, the maker claims. In Australia, likely candidates include car aficionados Kerry Packer and Lindsay Fox. The Australian importer is maintaining the company line and keeping mum.
When is enough enough?
Mercedes says the Maybach has "exemplary low weight", not an entirely accurate way to describe cars weighing 2660kg and 2780kg.
The lighter Maybach is more than half a tonne heavier than a Mercedes S Class with a similar V12 engine. despite the use of aluminium for the doors, roof and front fenders and high-strength plastic for the boot lid and spare wheel recess.
But if this million-dollar motor car has, in the maker's words, "trailblazing technical innovations" why is it not built entirely of high-cost aluminium?
Rival German maker Audi has been building its A8 limousine's body, core structure and all panels from aluminium since 1992. The latest Jaguar XJ has an aluminium body.
In this context it is a stretch to call either Maybach lightweight.
High society
Shipping a Maybach to New York - in a glass container on the deck of a luxury cruise liner four months ago - was only the beginning of Mercedes-Benz's open-chequebook media campaign.
The test-drive program began in Hamburg, Europe's richest city. Whether on land, air or sea, the transport was over the top.
The company chartered a $24 million super cruiser to cross a 300-metre-wide river - to get to the Airbus headquarters where a pair of private jets awaited.
Mercedes says its marketing campaign seeks to reach potential buyers by word of mouth.
"At the customer clinics I went to, [they] said the recommendation of their peers was more important to them than media reports," said its director of global product communications, Johannes Reifenrath. "But it is important to them that the public knows what they're driving. Being rich has no significance unless people know what [the car] is."
@NETPOLL
Would you spend $1 million on a car, even if money was no object?
To vote, go to drive.com.au
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This