Step 2 in the master plan: Sell the tools and dies to the Chinese.

proof that it was a good idea to put the Exelero in the JFG- somebody's gotta remember Maybach.

Don't worry, there are still some super-duper comfy Hyundai's for sale, and if you really squint the Rover 75 looks a bit similar...

The Maybach was and still is a great idea. It's just an ugly one. If you had the choice of car you wanted someone to send to pick you up, to take you to a meeting or something, which one of us wouldn't want a trip in a Maybach, just for the experience. But when it comes to handing over the $$$ then the Rolls Royce or the Bentley gets the sale every time.

I truly think that the Maybach is a good idea, a good niche, and well it still makes those of us in the start of our careers dream. However the styling really needs to seperate itself from the S-class and go for a more robust blunt nose sled look to really get the hoity-toity's salivating. The moment Maybach is not just a novelty at Mercedes dealerships is the moment they become an exclusive and true brand that could sell 600 in a year.

It's easy to say now, but the Maybach is/was a terrible idea. M-B used to have a car like this, the 600, which they sold only to magnates and politicos. It was a mark of arrogance for M-B to think they could more than a few hundred of these land yachts onto American roads.

The only salvation would have been the introduction of a bat guano crazy model, i.e. Excelero.

This is just like the Phaeton. VW wasn't a good enough brand to sell a car that looks like a Passat for $90K, no matter how well engineered, and Mercedes isn't a good enough brand to sell a car that looks like an S-class for $350K, no matter how well engineered.

The history of the brand didn't get nearly enough publicity for people to care about the brand (most people probably thought Maybach was made up), but since Maybach had its last hurrah during the Third Reich Mercedes couldn't glorify the history too much.

In the US there are probably way more pimped Sprinters driving around executives than there are Maybachs.

71 dealers in the US for an ultra-lux brand?! Who thought that was a good idea?

I never understood why MB had to recreate this Maybach brand, as they already are a luxury brand with the "S Klasse" on top... The Maybach should have been a the extreme luxury version of the "S Klasse", like the MB 600 from the 60s and they would have sold much more!

OK maybe it is "the beginning of the end". Or it could just be MB are getting realistic and bringing the number of Maybach dealerships into line with the competition. Bentley and RR both have about 35 dealerships in the US. The kind of people who employ chauffeurs congregate in the same few places anyway.

this is the least surprising news ever. They should have made the Maybach look like an updated MB 600 to give it some serious road presence instead of making it look a S-class that had been on Pimp My Ride

Over 70 dealers pushed just over 140 cars.. I've got to assume that some of those dealers sold more than one or two, leading me to the conclusion that at least a couple dealers sold squat last year.

Yeah.. probably time to axe it.

But wasn't Alfa Romeo planning to sell their cars out of Maybach dealerships?

Its tough in the super-luxe segment. Maybe they just couldn't compete withe the Cadillac 16:

There are 71 Maybach DEALERSHIPS? Are they nuts? Anyone willing to drop over $300K on a car is going to be willing to take a flight (first-class all the way, baby!) to where the car is sold. It doesn't matter where that is. If their self-worth is measured that externally, they'll go to whatever lengths necessary.

Has anyone else noticed what Warren Buffet drives? The man can buy the moon and have lunch money left over, and he gets around in what, an Altima? Buffet FTW.

Maybach was a dumbass idea, writ large.

Well, rap album sales are down....

So Dieter Zetsche is basically getting rid of everything created by Jürgen Schrempp? Is Smart next on the list?

I see a ton of these arounud Manhattan, but I had no idea they sold so few of them. 10-20% of all the Maybachs must be in Manhattan then!

The bad thing about this car (aside from its horrible mutant S class looks) is the fact that you don't drive it, you have it driven for you. The Bentley Flying Spur? You could actually drive that. The Rolls Royce Phantom? You could drive that too. But if you drive this car you are the chauffeur, not the one that bought the damn thing.

Good riddance.

@skaz: That was Maserati, not Maybach . . . seeing as FIAT actually OWNS Maser, and has nothing to do with M-B.

And people think that the 1980s were all about excess...

The most surreal sight involving autos: I saw a dude trying to parallel park his Maybach in Geneva between a Smart car and a Renault/Citroen/Peugeot compact.

I think that this underscores a point: things get "good enough", and that little bit extra costs soooo much that it's not worth it. It also hearkens a bit to the American motoring scene, which really has never been about chauffered limos. It's kind of a "do-it-yourself" culture here, and the Maybach is kind of the epitome of "let someone do it for you". I imagine that Russian oligarchs, English nobility and probably a handful of Asian tycoons would prefer the Maybach, but I see rich Americans and I see guys that want to drive something, more often than not.

@mmr: Well, the 62 S did have 600+ horses and hustle to 60 in the same time as a WRX, so it wouldn't have been that painful.

I saw one if these at a 7-11 a couple of weeks ago, with some guy dressed all in black(natch!) pumping gas into it. All the side curtains were pulled down like someone famous was inside. Who knows, this being Las Vegas, maybe someone famous was there. I just thought it was funny seeing it parked at a 7-11.

I guess there aren't as many stupid billionaires as they figured on.

If Mercedes didn't look so much like Chryslers these days they might be doing better. It's a travesty how that merger cheapened the Benz brand. Johnny Ottawa