Dragons, oligarchs and heads of oil rich states shed a tear over the weekend as news trickled out that Mercedes-Benz is to pull the plug on its floundering Maybach division.

Resurrected by Mercedes-Benz in response to resurgent Rolls-Royce and Bentley brands Maybach has never lived up to expectations with yearly sales falling well below the targeted 1,000 units. Total sales for the 57 and 62 models in 2010 amounted to just 157 cars. In the same period Rolls-Royce, now under the stewardship of BMW, sold a record 2,711 cars.

Maybach has been a dead-man walking for some time and once the proposed deal with Aston Martin (that would have seen the UK manufacturer collaborate on a second generation model), fell through it was only a matter of time.

The news was finally confirmed by Dieter Zetsche, CEO of parent company Daimler in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper: "It would not be sensible to develop a successor model for the current Maybach. We have had full discussions within the company about which path in the luxury segment was the most promising. And we came to the clear conclusions that the sales chances for the Mercedes brand were better than Maybach's."

Maybach will hobble on until 2013 when the next generation S-Class is released with new, more luxurious models including a possible S 600 Pullman filling the Maybach shaped hole.

Paul Healy - 29 Nov 2011