Daimler To Drop Maybach

Daimler AG plans to drop the underperforming Maybach brand in 2013, AutoWeek, a sister publication of Automotive News Europe, reported. The decision to disband the upper-luxury marque comes after lackluster sales of the company’s existing 57 and 62 limousines.

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche recently decided not to push ahead with the development of replacement models — which were tentatively due out in 2014 — owing to what one insider describes as a “positive move to focus greater attention on the Mercedes-Benz brand.”

“We’ve come to the conclusion that it is better to cut our losses with Maybach than to continue into an uncertain future with a brand that has failed to live up to original sales expectations,” one insider told AutoWeek. “Plans are already in place to fill the void left by the axing of the Maybach 57 and 62 with the next-generation S class, which will be offered in three wheelbase variations, including a top-of-the-range S600 Pullman.”

The Maybach brand was resurrected by Mercedes-Benz in 2002 following its failure to purchase Rolls-Royce and Bentley from then owner Vickers after being outbid by Volkswagen, which then ceded control of Rolls-Royce to BMW AG.

The original Maybach models, the 57 and 62, were named after their respective lengths of 5735mm and 6170mm. Both were based around stretched underpinnings of then already superceded third-generation S-class first introduced in 1991. A recent proposal to involve Aston Martin in the development of future Maybach models was abandoned in early 2011.