Our mystery man in Switzerland has managed to shoot one of the CC Holy Grails of street-side shots. What’s there to add? How about a bit of juicy gossip about the driver of the Maybach, to give some additional meaning to the headline?
“The poor man driving the increasingly dilapidated Maybach is a retired Liechtenstein banker (that rumor has it was involved in the whole Helmut Kohl – CDU money laundering shush fund game.”
And now he can’t afford a new Smart?
This has to be the best contrast ever! And the Maybach’s even the 62!
AWWWW!!!!! Didn’t he get a taxpayer bailout??? Poor Bankster.
Maybe he did though..And someone but a dent in the rear of his Maybach..And Now he’s being discreet.
If ever a car summed up the Boom to bust, Credit Binge..The Maybach it is.
A Maybach is one car I have never actually seen. Cool shot.
I’ve seen two Maybachs. One of them was broken down on the side of the highway.
I sat in a new Maybach 62S at the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance back in 2008. It was very nice, but nothing an S-Class couldn’t satisfy for $200,000 less.
Had the privilege of sitting in a Maybach during the launch here in Boston. had the pleasure of speaking with Herb Chambers (google it) for quite a while… fun to sit in the back seat of a car worth that much money with a billionaire talking not about the Maybach but about his love of cars, which incidentally includes a McLaren F1.
I’ve seen Herb in his Mercedes SLR.
Wasn’t it his kid who wrecked a Ford GT (or was he in a Mercedes SLR racing the Ford GT) on a main road in downtown Boston?
Unknown, the drivers / passengers last name was Chambers and it had a Chambers plate on it: http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060209/NEWS/602090802&SearchID=73235133323841
Makes me cry.
Owww, that’s a Deadly Sin.
Never met Herb in person but Ive been by his house to drop off a boat at the marina next door and worked an insurance claim on one of his small boats. Here;s some info on his big boat
http://www.yachtsmagazine.com/a-profile-in-excellence-herb-chambers-and-his-yacht/
I may have seen a Maybach, but it might’ve been a Kia Amanti.
Still kicking myself for choosing a white Taurus to rent in California over a black Amanti. I have driven a dozen Taurii over the years, but never an Amanti. Probably never will. Actually, I always thought the Amanti looked like a shrunken 98 Town Car.
Maybach has a dent in it.
That is a pretty blatant contrast, and probably exceeds the one that I saw in Naples, FL in February. Standing at a street corner on 5th Ave (which is their main fashionable street), light turns green out comes a late 70s Toyota Corolla coupe much worse for wear and sounding like a riding lawn mower takes the lead off the followed by a Bentley convertible in the next lane. You see a lot of Bentleys in Naples, but not a lot of 70s Toyota, even though that Corolla was pretty beat up looking it appeared to have only limited body rust which means it must have been a local that survived. Of course the stereotypes were at play, the Corolla driver was youngish with more hair than he needed and the Bentley a typical slightly overweight white guy at least in his 60s.
There is a company in Charlotte that rents exotic vehicles like this:
Ooooooh! Look at the dent on that Maybach! I bet it will cost more to fix than my current new car I got in 2002
I simply cannot relate to someone who will spend Maybach-level money for an automobile. Status, sure…but at some level it just identifies the owner a fool for paying such huge amounts of money for a different branding and sheetmetal creasing of a Daimler-Benz.
I’m not a great admirer of the SMART car; but in this case I think it’s the smarter of the two choices.
And built by the same company. How striking is that?
I want to paint the Smart in the same color scheme as the Maybach and winch the Smart to the side of the Maybach as a lifeboat/escape pod.
Aston Martin is doing that with the Cygnat ostensibly for corporate fuel economy reasons but it’s also being marketed as something like a city/country ownership experience.
But it’s nothing more than a Toyota iQ with an Aston-like grille and special colors. If that isn’t a parallel to the Cimarron I don’t know what is…
Although the Cimarron was done for as much spatial reasons as CAFE, but somehow I don’t think DB9 buyers are clamoring for small car.
And I thought my Austin7 Dodge Ram shot was a great contrast, I’m beaten soundly great catch.
Holy crap, that Maybach is a European Continental – er – a Continental European…
“After the divorce, she got the Maybach and he was left with a Smart car. Guess who planted his boot in the backside of the Maybach?”
Never saw the appeal in either of them. The Maybach has about as much visual appeal as a 2001 Lincoln Continental, and the Smart is a golf cart without any room for golf clubs.
Maybe I’m just a lowly peasant but I’ll never get the elite’s desire to be chauffeured(I don’t even like riding in limos). No matter how many minibars and lounge chairs they jam back there, or how isolated the seat rear environment is, complete with window blinds, I’m not going to be able to convince myself that I’m not being driven down the highway any differently than the kids in the mini van next to me.
Clearly, what’s called for is a compromise between the two extremes.
I took an identical picture last summer except it was my 1984 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight next to a Scion iQ.
You ever go to a BHPH lot and check out a $16K Roll Royce Silver Spur with a cheap aftermarket CD/stereo installed?
I’m thinking that’s pretty much the future for all Maybachs.