Maybach Zeppelin comes over the horizon

The Maybach Zeppelin - an even bigger waste of money than the standard Maybach

Maybach has not exactly been an unmitigated success for Mercedes. Conceived as a competitor for Rolls Royce, it does seem to have carved itself a niche, but probably not the one that Mercedes wanted.

Perceived by most as a tarted-up S Class, and bought by the wealthy of the Playstation generation, rather than the Captains of Industry that Mercedes envisioned, the Maybach must be a loss-maker for Mercedes. But Dieter Zetsche of Mercedes has gone on record as saying that “Maybach’s profitability or otherwise is not an issue”, which tends to indicate that Mercedes are in this for the long-haul, and are happy to have a halo car that competes with Rolls Royce, despite the costs and the image.

But Mercedes can’t seem to grasp that, for most, a re-badged, tarted-up S Class just doesn’t cut the mustard, regardless of how many bells and whistles the car has. But they seem set to plough their own road with this, and have announced the Maybach Zeppelin, as a ’57′ or a ’62′.

Zeppelin was the moniker of the original top-of-the-range Maybach, but it seems likely to crash and burn just like its namesake. Really just a cosmetic package, with a slightly beefed up engine, Mercedes reckons they are only going to produce 100 cars. Well, with not many more than that produced across the entire range last year, it looks like that is a wish-target, not a limited production number.

The Maybach is already the heaviest depreciating car on the market (certainly in money terms) losing an incredible 40% of its value in the first year, so with prices for the Zeppelin at £420k for the Zeppelin 57 and £490k for the Zeppelin 62, it looks like a good way to lose even more money on a Maybach than before.

Start an orderly queue here!

By Cars UK