Copyright 2005
Maybach 57:
(continued)
What a Mercedes S-class buyer does get is much of the same switchgear as a Maybach owner does. Whether this will bother guys plunking down more than twice the cost of an S600, we can't say. We can say that all the switchgear works well and feels of high quality. And the Maybach's buttons are either covered in wood or polished to a high shine instead of the matte-black Merc pieces. And as we all know, shinier is better.
Shinier would certainly describe the Maybach's styling, with a dose of chrome generous enough to embarrass most German cars. We don't find the Maybach attractive, but we think that matters less than whether the car has presence. Anyone who spends $311,700 on a car wants everybody to know that somebody has arrived when he or she pulls up. Here the Maybach fails. Perhaps a decade from now, when the reputation of this new brand is established, people will reflexively bow at the sight of a Maybach. But it currently has no reputation at all. Our one dramatic and unequivocal civilian reaction came from a plumber in a blue Ford F-150. Passing it, he took a long, puzzled gander and then thrust his index finger into his wide-open mouth. This is but one man's opinion. And Maybach might feel that he is as unqualified to judge such things as the 99-point-whatever percent of other Americans who can't dream of affording a Maybach. But if the Maybach projected the image it should, shouldn't he have tugged on his forelocks in deference?
Like us, our plumber might also find William Hearst's castle to be grandly gaudy. But it surely was not cheap, and Hearst apparently liked it quite a lot.
COUNTERPOINT
I was chauffeured around town in this limousine. When it was over, my chin was drool-free. Nice back seat, cozy head pillow, lots of buttons, the obligatory tiny fridge for my half-bottle of Cristal. Uh-huh. And then you drive it, and it's the world's fastest limo. Although it weighs 1843 pounds (about the weight of a Honda Insight) more than the road-ripper Mercedes E55 AMG, even at three tons it blows through a quarter-mile only 0.7 second behind that AMG screamer. Can I get a "Wow!"? The riffraff at Britain's CAR magazine said the new Rolls Phantom would "demolish" the Maybach. Save that issue, ladies, you're going to have to eat it. —Steve Spence
I was making notes about the Maybach's muscle—ja, plenty of that—when I realized that sort of observation is essentially irrelevant. Assessing this car in automotive terms is like rating the Palais de Versailles in terms of bathroom function. So what justifies a $311,700 price tag? Prestige? DaimlerChrysler thinks the name has cachet, but that's a stretch. Karl Maybach survived WWII, but his car did not; it's been dead six decades. Presence? Gorgeous within, but aside from size, the exterior seems a little anonymous. The latest Rolls-Royce, in contrast, looks like its forebears. And in the realm of flaunting it, there's still nothing that says I've-got-it like a Roller. —Tony Swan
"The 57 is the 'driver's car.'" I was planning to spend 16 lines making fun of that PR-guy one-liner. I mean, c'mon, 6080 pounds of leather-lined isolation tank cum champagne bar is a "driver's car"? Owner-operator's maybe. To gather fodder for my harangue, I drove the back roads to work as if being pursued by paparazzi with Snoop Dogg in the back. And danged if the thing doesn't actually work. It accelerates, brakes, and corners at g levels that could decant an entire bottle of "Bolly" without removing it from its precious little holder. Nonetheless, this car is about the back seat, which is why I can't imagine not popping for the ultralux 62.
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