Wilhelm Maybach

Biography

Wilhelm Maybach was born in Heilbronn on 9 February 1846 and had lost both parents by the age of ten. A charitable institution in Reutlingen took him in, and its founder sent him to the engineering workshop. Once qualified as a designer he became Gottlieb Daimler's main assistant, followed him to Karlsruhe in 1869 and joined the engine maker Deutz as chief designer in 1872.

In 1882 the two men set up their own workshop in Cannstatt. Their 'grandfather clock' engine and a float-fed carburettor followed in 1885, along with the Reitwagen motorcycle that November and a motorised carriage in 1886. Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) was founded in 1890; Maybach left in 1891, designed the four-cylinder Phoenix engine in 1894 and returned as chief engineer in 1895. In 1900 he designed a new car for Emil Jellinek, named after Jellinek's daughter Mercedes; rated at 26 kW (35 hp), it went on sale in 1902.

In 1907 DMG moved him to an 'inventor's office' and he left. In 1909 he and his son Karl started an engine company for Count Zeppelin's airships, renamed Maybach-Motorenbau in 1912, and from 1921 it also built Maybach cars. The University of Stuttgart gave him an honorary doctorate in 1916. He died in Stuttgart on 29 December 1929. The Automotive Hall of Fame honoured him in 1996, and Daimler revived Maybach as a car brand in 2002.