1962 Forgotten Fame of the Maybach Zeppelin - 4-Page Vintage Automobile Article

Description

1962 Forgotten Fame of the Maybach Zeppelin - 4-Page Vintage Automobile Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
ONE OF THE FINEST AUTOMOTIVE MAKES of all time is among the
least known. In spite of its unusual design, stupendous work-
manship, solid elegance and unforgettable, resounding name, the
Maybach Zeppelin left barely a ripple on the surface of history.
This is particularly fantastic since Wilhelm Maybach and Count
Ferdinand Zeppelin functioned on the level where big history
is made.
Surprisingly, the story began in the United States. Count Zep-
pelin, a German military officer in his early twenties, came here
during the Civil War and served in the Union Army. Part of
his activity as a military observer included training in the use of
free and captive balloons, with which he made many ascensions.
He returned to Germany, rose to the rank of major general of
cavalry, and again saw balloons used successfully by the French
during the Franco-Prussian War. He conceived his own type of
streamlined, self-propelled balloon and in 1894, after retirement
and aged 56, he drew up his first design, thereby beginning his
real career. His first lighter-than-air craft, 419 ft. long, made
its successful maiden voyage on July 2, 1900. For engines Zep-
pelin relied upon the counsel of Wilhelm Maybach.
Maybach had been associated with "Papa” Gottlieb Daimler
since their school days together. When Daimler became manager
of the Deutz Gas Engine Works in 1872 he brought Maybach
in as chief designer and engineer. Then and later Daimler’s
accomplishments with internal combustion engines and with self-
propelled vehicles undoubtedly were based in large part on the
brilliant, fundamental contributions of his genius-associate.
Maybach’s epochal invention of the modern carburetor won
him the position of technical director of Daimler Motoren Ges-
selschaft in 1896 and in .1900 his first Mercedes car was revealed.
It was the model which the world auto industry would follow
for decades. Seven years later Maybach "retired.”
Up to this time Zeppelin had used four-cylinder Mercedes
engines for his airships; the friendship between the two men led
to the founding of Maybach’s own engine plant next to Zep-
pelin’s dirigible works at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance
(Bodensee), on the German-Swiss border. Young engineer Karl
Maybach collaborated with his father on the design of a six-
cylinder engine which became the standard power plant not only
for Zeppelin but for this type of aircraft wherever it was built:
in Italy, Japan and elsewhere in Germany.
World War I put a temporary end to German aircraft produc-
tion and Maybach Motorenbau, under the technical direction of
the founder’s son, converted to production comparable with the
Treaty of Versailles. This included a program for the develop-
ment of high quality engines for many applications, ultimately
resulting in a VI2 configuration which found its way into such...
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