????持續將近10年的虧損后，戴姆勒汽車公司（Daimler）終于關閉了豪車品牌邁巴赫。戴姆勒董事長迪特爾?柴奇對德國報紙《法蘭克福匯報》（Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung）表示：“為邁巴赫研發后續車型沒有意義。即將上市的奔馳S級是一款非常優秀的車型，足以取代邁巴赫。”

????柴奇將會很高興終于能夠擺脫邁巴赫。邁巴赫和虧損的奔馳Smart微型車，加上并購克萊斯勒失敗，都是柴奇的前任尤爾根?施倫普留下的失敗遺產。柴奇需要解決更緊迫的問題，而邁巴赫已經這樣不痛不癢地存在了許多年。柴奇顯然對這個品牌沒有多少尊敬之情，因為他認為邁巴赫對于公司財務無足輕重。

????如果為死去的邁巴赫寫篇墓志銘，碑文恐怕不會很體面。這款車型借助了梅賽德斯奔馳的光環，以便為35萬至140萬美元的天價正名。但光鮮的車身內，實際是一臺不怎樣的二流車。它唯一拿得出手的就是價格。有錢人們很快發現了這一點，于是紛紛敬而遠之?？梢娬忌鐣?.0001%的富豪們也并非錢多人傻。

????關于邁巴赫還有一些鮮為人知的故事：當上世紀90年代末，勞斯萊斯和賓利謀求出售的時候，梅賽德斯奔馳決定不參與收購這兩個品牌。一名高管當時說：“經過考慮后，我們表示我們不想玩這場游戲。價碼太高了?！?/p>

????不過梅賽德斯奔馳的另外兩個德國競爭對手卻“玩得起”。寶馬公司（BMW）收購了勞斯萊斯，大眾（Volkswagen）收購了賓利。由于擔心自己成為高端豪車市場上的局外人，于是奔馳變了卦，決定自己也需要進軍超奢華汽車業務，但它走的卻是一條非常笨拙的路。

????寶馬在收購勞斯萊斯后重新為其開發了一款全新的車型；大眾則走了另一條路，在現款奧迪A8的基礎上開發了一款新的賓利。但這兩種辦法奔馳都沒有采取，而是拿了一個過時的奔時S級轎車的底盤，在上面扣了一個長得離譜的車身。這樣一款超級豪華轎車就誕生了，它足有20英尺長，看起來就像一輛Airstream牌房車。

????下一步就是為這個不受待見的產品起個名字了。追溯歷史和傳統，奔馳決定以德國著名工程師威廉?邁巴赫的名字為其命名，他曾在上世紀20和30年代生產過一系列豪華轎車。后來他與格拉夫?齊伯林一道，設計和生產了以他的名字命名的飛艇發動機。奔馳一開始考慮過“邁巴赫?齊伯林”這個名字，不過他們二人設計的飛艇也叫這個名字，奔馳也明智地認為把自己的汽車和飛艇扯在一塊兒不是什么好事。

????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.