CarBrandLogos archive · Maybach · 1928

MaybachMaybach Zeppelin

Twelve cylinders from an airship engineer, and a gearbox with eight speeds in 1930.

Photo: Alf van Beem · Public domain

The story

A defining chapter in Maybach history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Maybach Zeppelin, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Wilhelm Maybach designed the engines that made the first Mercedes; his son Karl built the engines that powered Count von Zeppelin's airships. When the Maybach works in Friedrichshafen turned to motor cars in the 1920s, it did so with that engineering culture intact, and the name of the flagship was not marketing — it came from the company's own airship business.

Maybach Zeppelin red vr

Design and engineering

The Zeppelin arrived in 1928 with a 7.0-litre V12, replaced from 1930 by an 8.0-litre version of the same layout. What set it apart from other German luxury cars was the transmission. Maybach's Doppelschnellgang and later Variorex systems offered up to eight ratios operated by vacuum servo through a small lever, so the driver of a very heavy car could change gear without effort — an idea decades ahead of its widespread adoption.

Maybach DS 8 at Musée Mulhouse, B 11b · Frila · CC BY-SA 3.0

Autosammlung Steim - Schramberg 061 Maybach DS 8 Zeppelin

In production

Only chassis were built at Friedrichshafen; bodies came from Spohn of Ravensburg and other coachbuilders, as saloons, two- and four-door cabriolets, and occasional bare-chassis specials. They were among the most expensive cars available in Germany, and production to 1938 numbered in the low hundreds.

Autosammlung Steim - Schramberg 061 Maybach DS 8 Zeppelin · Klaus Nahr from Germany · CC BY-SA 2.0

Legacy

The firm went back to engines afterwards — tank and locomotive units — and the marque disappeared entirely until Daimler revived it at the end of the century.

At a glance