持续将近10年的亏损后，戴姆勒汽车公司（Daimler）终于关闭了豪车品牌迈巴赫。戴姆勒董事长迪特尔•柴奇对德国报纸《法兰克福汇报》（Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung）表示：“为迈巴赫研发后续车型没有意义。即将上市的奔驰S级是一款非常优秀的车型，足以取代迈巴赫。”

    柴奇将会很高兴终于能够摆脱迈巴赫。迈巴赫和亏损的奔驰Smart微型车，加上并购克莱斯勒失败，都是柴奇的前任尤尔根•施伦普留下的失败遗产。柴奇需要解决更紧迫的问题，而迈巴赫已经这样不痛不痒地存在了许多年。柴奇显然对这个品牌没有多少尊敬之情，因为他认为迈巴赫对于公司财务无足轻重。

    如果为死去的迈巴赫写篇墓志铭，碑文恐怕不会很体面。这款车型借助了梅塞德斯奔驰的光环，以便为35万至140万美元的天价正名。但光鲜的车身内，实际是一台不怎样的二流车。它唯一拿得出手的就是价格。有钱人们很快发现了这一点，于是纷纷敬而远之。可见占社会0.0001%的富豪们也并非钱多人傻。

    关于迈巴赫还有一些鲜为人知的故事：当上世纪90年代末，劳斯莱斯和宾利谋求出售的时候，梅塞德斯奔驰决定不参与收购这两个品牌。一名高管当时说：“经过考虑后，我们表示我们不想玩这场游戏。价码太高了。”

    不过梅塞德斯奔驰的另外两个德国竞争对手却“玩得起”。宝马公司（BMW）收购了劳斯莱斯，大众（Volkswagen）收购了宾利。由于担心自己成为高端豪车市场上的局外人，于是奔驰变了卦，决定自己也需要进军超奢华汽车业务，但它走的却是一条非常笨拙的路。

    宝马在收购劳斯莱斯后重新为其开发了一款全新的车型；大众则走了另一条路，在现款奥迪A8的基础上开发了一款新的宾利。但这两种办法奔驰都没有采取，而是拿了一个过时的奔时S级轿车的底盘，在上面扣了一个长得离谱的车身。这样一款超级豪华轿车就诞生了，它足有20英尺长，看起来就像一辆Airstream牌房车。

    下一步就是为这个不受待见的产品起个名字了。追溯历史和传统，奔驰决定以德国著名工程师威廉•迈巴赫的名字为其命名，他曾在上世纪20和30年代生产过一系列豪华轿车。后来他与格拉夫•齐伯林一道，设计和生产了以他的名字命名的飞艇发动机。奔驰一开始考虑过“迈巴赫•齐伯林”这个名字，不过他们二人设计的飞艇也叫这个名字，奔驰也明智地认为把自己的汽车和飞艇扯在一块儿不是什么好事。

    Ending almost a decade of losses, Daimler is shutting down its super-luxury Maybach brand. It would not make sense to develop a successor model," chairman Dieter Zetsche said to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "The coming S-Class is in such a way a superior vehicle that it can replace the Maybach."

    Zetsche will be glad to wipe his hands of Maybach (pronounced MY-bock). It was one more embarrassment -- like the money-losing Smart car and the failed Chrysler merger -- left over from the reign of his grandiose predecessor, Juergen Schrempp. Maybach has been hanging around for years while Zetsche, who clearly had little respect for the brand and dismissed it as financially inconsequential, dealt with more pressing problems.

    The Maybach epitaph will not be a not pretty one. It was a remarkably cynical effort by Daimler to use the halo of its Mercedes-Benz brand to justify prices of $350,000 to $1.4 million for an inferior automobile wrapped in a glitzy package. Maybach strived for a prestige that it tried to ground on price alone. The wealthy figured it out in a hurry and stayed away in droves. Appearances to the contrary sometimes notwithstanding, the top 0.0001% didn't accumulate all that money by being stupid.

    Here's the Maybach back-story: When Rolls-Royce and Bentley came up for sale at the end of the 1990s, Mercedes decided to pass. One executive said at the time, "At the end of the day, we said we didn't want to play this game. The price was too high."

    Mercedes's German rivals did want to play, however. BMW wound up with Rolls, and Volkswagen got Bentley. Fearful of being left out of the high status game, Mercedes backpedaled and decided it needed to be in the ultra-luxury business too, but it went after it in a remarkably clumsy way.

    Rather than develop a new car from the wheels up, as BMW did with Rolls-Royce, or cleverly use the underpinnings of an existing model like the Audi A8 for a new Bentley, Mercedes took an aging S-class chassis and plopped an absurdly elongated body on it. A top-of-the-line auto was born: more than 20 feet long with all the grace of an Airstream trailer.

    The next piece of business was to find a name for this ungainly creation. Borrowing a patina of history and heritage, Mercedes decided to name it after a German engineer named Wilhelm Maybach, who had produced a line of limousine-size cars in the '20s and '30s. He later collaborated with Graf Zeppelin to design and produce engines for the airships that bore his name. Mercedes toyed with the name "Maybach Zeppelin" but sensibly decided the blimp connection might not be a positive one.

    由于“迈巴赫”并不像戴姆勒或法拉利那样家喻户晓，因此奔驰花费了大量时间为这款车型打造一些个性。顾客可以像装饰游艇一样装饰自己的车，花上几个小时的时间选择内饰的织物、颜色、皮革和木头等。

    要想确定顾客愿意为这种奢侈品花费多少钱，一定要先做些研究。梅塞德斯奔驰将概念车空运到香港、摩纳哥、纽约，然后对潜在买家进行民意调查。结果显示有意购买豪车的顾客可能对价格并不是十分敏感，但是却喜欢讨价还价。有些顾客甚至要求赠品——比如买车时赠送一辆价值11.5万美元的奔驰SL跑车作为赠品。

    奔驰在2002年将迈巴赫推向市场，当时引起了不小的轰动。美国市场上的第一台迈巴赫是摆在一艘轮船的甲板上运到纽约市的，然后用一架直升飞机吊起来，运到华尔街附近的一个降落地点。威廉•迈巴赫的女儿已经垂垂老矣，但也出现在了该车的各种促销活动上。整个场面都沸腾了。“根据我们的调查，有足够的顾客有能力购买这样一辆轿车，”奔驰销售与市场总监乔阿希姆•施密特表示：“只要特性鲜明，就有机会卖出1,000台。”

    当然，迈巴赫显然不够特别。它成了一辆非常昂贵的礼宾车。宾利和劳斯莱斯背后都有各自的历史。而且虽说劳斯莱斯的顾客大多都有自己的司机，但偶尔在必要的时候也会自己亲自开车。而迈巴赫从来没有宣称自己是一辆适合车主自驾的轿车。许多汽车记者在评测时都坚持要亲手开上一会儿，才肯给出正面的评价，但最后还是被请到了后排座位上。所有的活动都是在后排座位上进行的，迈巴赫的后排座位可以像飞机的商务舱座位一样向后方倾斜，而且还有头枕和延伸出来的踏脚板。坐在这儿的幸运大佬可以使用车内的冰箱、雪茄保湿盒，以及其它一些奔驰公司觉得对于上流社会人士十分重要的物件。

    但迈巴赫并未引起上流社会的共鸣。即便在中国豪车市场飞速发展的情况下，迈巴赫的销量也仍然止步不前。很快人们就看出这个品牌陷入了麻烦，而奔驰公司也明智地没有花钱为迈巴赫的产品线升级换代。据《汽车新闻》（Automotive News）报道，2010年，迈巴赫这个将满10岁的品牌在全球只卖出了157台轿车，而同年宝马却卖出了2,711台售价相差无几的劳斯莱斯。

    迈巴赫就此安歇了，但奔驰并不会放弃超豪华汽车市场。奔驰计划将产品线中最高级的S级轿车由当前的3款车型扩展成6款车型，而最新一代的旗舰车型也将于2013年推出。

    我们希望这一次它不会再以一个造飞艇的家伙来命名。

    译者：朴成奎

    Since "Maybach" was not exactly a household name like Daimler or Ferrari, Mercedes worked overtime to create some personality for its cars. Customers were expected to equip their autos the way they would a yacht, spending hours selecting fabrics, colors, hides, and woods.

    Determining exactly how much customers were willing to pay for this kind of extravagance required some research. Mercedes flew the concept car to Hong Kong, Monaco, and New York City to poll potential buyers. It discovered that customers may not have been very price-sensitive, but they did appreciate a bargain. Some even asked for freebies -- like a $115,000 Mercedes SL roadster -- to be included with their purchase.

    Mercedes brought Maybach to market with a splash in 2002. For the U.S., it shipped the first car to New York on the deck of a ship and lifted it by helicopter to a landing place near Wall Street. The aging daughter of Wilhelm Maybach was enlisted to appear at various promotional events. The atmosphere was frothy. "Based on our research, there are enough customers who are able to afford such a car," said Joachim Schmidt, head of Mercedes's sales and marketing. "If you deliver something very special, then you have a chance to sell 1,000 cars."

    Not special enough, apparently. The Maybach turned out to be a very expensive limo. Bentley and Rolls had histories behind them, and while the Rolls customer expected to be driven in his car, he could, in a pinch, drive it himself. Maybach never made a pretense of being an owner-driven vehicle. Automotive journalists, many of whom insist upon sitting behind the wheel before making a positive judgment on a vehicle, were offered rides as passengers instead. All the action was in the rear seats that reclined like those in an airplane's business class, with pillowed headrests and extended footrests. The lucky rider could access in-car refrigerators, cigar humidors and other appurtenances thought to be essential for membership in the upper classes.

    It just didn't compute. Even the booming luxury car market in China wasn't enough to move Maybach off the starting line. It quickly became apparent that the brand was in trouble, and Mercedes sensibly never invested in updating the model line. In 2010 only 157 Maybachs -- from a brand nearly a decade old -- were sold globally, according to Automotive News, while BMW moved 2,711 similarly priced Rolls.

    With Maybach put to rest, Mercedes won't be abandoning the ultra-luxury segment. It plans to expand its top-of-the line Mercedes segment -- the S-Class -- to six variations from the current three when a new generation of the flagship model is launched in 2013.

    One hopes that it doesn't decide to name them after a guy who designed blimps.