Automotive engineering with a sensitive touch - Into the Maybach realm of senses
• Soft fine leather that feels so good
• Trim made from glistening, costly Indian granite
• Novel lighting technology for the right ambience
With the special Maybach Zeppelin model, the Maybach Manufaktur is once again holding true to its principle of offering its customers an unprecedented plethora of possibilities for personalising their car and creating their very own Maybach that is truly one of a kind. Besides achieving perfection on a technical and functional level, the aim is to appeal to all senses with maximum effect. The new perfume atomiser in the Maybach Zeppelin is a further step towards an exquisite and stylish form of sensuousness.
The Maybach luxury brand offers unique ways of customising the specification of its top-class saloons. Of crucial importance in the work performed by the Manufaktur in Sindelfingen are the materials and cutting-edge technologies used to offer a profound experience for the senses. This is why the Maybach specialists repeatedly come up with superb new materials and paint finishes – many of them specially developed for Maybach and not available from any other vehicle manufacturer.
With its flair for the extraordinary, its acute understanding of the perceptual capabilities of our senses and through continuous dialogue with its customers, the Maybach Manufaktur continuously expands its range of optional and customised extras in order to keep fulfilling the wishes and requirements of the automotive market’s most prestigious clientele.
Sumptuous leather and black stone
Leather and fine wood set the tone in the interior of every Maybach Saloon and underpin the passenger compartment’s refined ambience. Even in the vehicle’s basic specification, Maybach customers have the choice of several Grand Nappa leather colours for styling the interior. The Maybach Manufaktur has yet more fine leather variants to offer besides these too. The high-gloss Stromboli black leather that is also featured in the new Maybach Zeppelin adds yet another gleaming highlight in the truest sense of the word. To achieve the exceptional sheen, the leather specialists at the Maybach Manufaktur took the existing nappa/semi-aniline leather and refined it further in an additional processing stage. This involves giving the leather a special gloss dressing to make the surface appear not just smoother and shinier, but “blacker” too, especially in contrast with the way the light plays on it.
Handcrafted trim made from fine wood or stone
A selection of fine woods team up with the exquisite leather trim to define the character of the Maybach interior and exude a lounge atmosphere of unparalleled exclusivity. As many as 100 different wood trim elements embellish the surfaces of the interior, the insides of the doors and the centre consoles – each painstakingly handcrafted and individually selected by experienced specialists to ensure a matching grain and colour shade. Even in standard guise, discerning Maybach customers are able to choose from three fine wood veneers:
• Cherry: a light-coloured wood with a prominent, arched grain. Comes with a contrasting jet-black, impact-resistant, high-gloss piano lacquer application in the area around the centre consoles;
• Amboyna: an exquisite reddish-brown wood with a fine, circular grain;
• Burr walnut: a brown, finely grained veneer from the root of the Californian walnut tree.
These are constantly being supplemented by new fine woods, as well as piano lacquer or carbon-fibre trim to give Maybach customers every opportunity to tailor their saloon as individually as possible.
Stone is made for ever
Decorative elements and trim made from Indian Star Galaxy granite form a stunning contrast. The rare stone is deep black in colour and covered in gold specks. This exquisite natural material has a special aura to it, exhibiting a vibrant brilliance which can only be found in nature – feldspars twinkle in natural stone, glittering and glimmering with three-dimensional crystals that create a fascinating sense of depth. Such effects can never be reproduced with synthetic materials.
Unconventional means of bending stone
To allow the extremely thin stone plates to be also draped around tightly curving surfaces and even corners without losing any of the stone’s captivating visual effect, the engineers and designers had to take an unconventional approach. They fastened a thin leaf of the granite to a sort of adhesive film, then broke it up into small particles of almost identical size by passing it between two rollers operating at a precisely defined pressure and speed. Rather than producing a formless mixture, each particle stayed in exactly the same position. As the microcrystalline structure is not destroyed by this treatment, the stone appears to be intact afterwards and retains all of the properties which make it so valuable, yet it can be manipulated into almost any shape.
The stone material has come through the toughest tests with flying colours. Its lightfastness is flawless, while the stone also achieved top marks in crash tests. And little wonder too: after all, there is no rebound momentum with stone, plus, because the trim is composed of stone that has already been deliberately and precisely segmented, there is no risk of it shattering into sharp fragments, just like with safety glass.
Interior lighting: using light as a design feature
The Maybach designers employ light as a further styling element for stimulating the senses. In addition to the lights which come on automatically when the doors are opened and reading lights which can be switched on at the touch of a button, they also developed an ambient lighting system. This creates a pleasant, diffused lighting effect, which remains switched on even when the car is on the move to produce a special atmosphere in the interior.
The panoramic glass roof: transparency at the touch of a button
The highlight of this sophisticated lighting concept is without doubt the remarkable electro-transparent panoramic glass roof for the Maybach 62 models. It spans the roof liner above the rear passengers like an atrium, allowing light to flood the rear compartment and giving the passengers a rare degree of control over the illumination of their surroundings. It features a liquid crystal membrane of conductive polymer plastic. When an alternating current is applied to it, the crystals in the plastic membrane are arranged in such a way that the glass becomes transparent and allows daylight into the rear of the Maybach 62 models over its entire area. As soon as the power is switched off, the liquid crystals lose their transparent arrangement again and the light is fragmented in all directions. The glass becomes nearly opaque and filters the daylight falling on it to produce a pleasant, diffused glow. This electrically operated transparency function is also used in most countries for the partition screen that can be ordered as an option.
An electrically driven sliding liner rounds off the luxurious lighting package. Its electroluminescent membrane can be switched on at the touch of a button when closed, emitting a pleasant, diffused light over its entire surface. A potentiometer in the rear console of the Maybach 62 models gives the rear passengers complete control over the illumination of the membrane and strength of the ambient lighting.
Out-of-the-ordinary material requests: gold instead of chrome
Maybach takes the topic of customisation so seriously that even the more exotic special requests expressed by individual customers, such as gold instead of chrome, can be turned into reality. In response to customer requests and taking the Maybach 57 as a basis, the interior appointments specialists at the luxury brand have taken this golden notion to new heights by gold-plating all chrome trim parts in the vehicle interior with a wafer-thin layer of genuine 24-carat gold. The gleam of the gold adds a heightened touch of refinement to the interior of the Maybach Saloon, and harmonises perfectly with the fine woods and the Maybach leathers. The keys for the luxurious Maybach Saloons are also available in gold.
Coats of arms and monograms: personalised perfection
It goes without saying that Maybach also offers its highly discerning customers plenty of scope to give their high-end luxury saloons an even more prestigious interior. For example, the Maybach Manufaktur can implement owners’ requests for their vehicles to be adorned with their monograms and family coats of arms in many different ways - embroidered on the head restraints, printed in gold and silver on piano lacquer using an exclusive silk-screen process, or laser-etched on head cushions, to mention just three examples. Customers - and not just those who are car enthusiasts or collectors of historic Maybach saloons - also have the option of having the Maybach double "M" embossed in the leather of the door panels as a sign of their special attachment to the brand. Of course, they can also choose to have their own monogram or coat of arms embossed there instead.