You don't buy a Maybach to drive it. You buy a Maybach so that you can be chauffeured. The leather-clad rear seats of the long-wheelbase 62 model recline and extend and coddle passengers with Alcantara pillows for head restraints. Add an additional dose of opulence with seat piping embedded with Swarovski crystals or a flacon perfume diffuser. When it's time to relax, passengers can power the fabric curtains into a closed position and flick on the nineteen-inch cinema screen. Audio is pumped through a twenty-one-speaker Bose stereo. (Every Maybach comes with a lifetime satellite radio subscription.) A refrigerator between the seats is perfect for keeping Dom Perignon chilled--to be enjoyed in hand-polished sterling silver champagne flutes that come with every Maybach. A glove-box-mounted microphone can be used to issue directives to the commoners without lowering a window. Fully electronic automatic-closing rear doors are optional. Based on the Mercedes-Benz S-class, the Maybach 62 weighs three and a half tons but can steam to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds thanks to a twin-turbo V-12. The sportier S models use a larger displacement twelve-cylinder for even quicker acceleration. If that's not exclusive enough, the $1.4 million Landaulet is a throwback to the coachwork automobiles of the 1920s and '30s with a fixed roof over the front cabin and a folding cloth roof over the rear passenger compartment. When it comes to craftsmanship, indulgent luxury, and exclusivity (the brand sells fewer than 100 cars a year), you can't do much better than a Maybach.

At board meetings, on test tracks, and in design studios, decisions are being made today that will influence what you drive tomorrow. Automakers are hard at work creating the next generation of automobiles -- cars that are faster, sexier, more efficient -- while trying to keep their development secret. Like you, we are nosy as hell. Unlike you, we have a vast network of snoops, gossips, and disgruntled former employees who have helped us uncover the information we present here. Our annual Sneak Preview feature contains the industry's future products -- as far out as 2019 -- that are worth saving your milk money for.

Maybach has long been assumed to be at death's door. The brand is actually profitable on paper since the ramp-up investment has been fully absorbed by Daimler AG. Still, at a homeopathic 200 to 300 units a year, it's hardly worth the continued cost of a special distribution and service network. It doesn't help matters that current Maybachs are based on the previous-generation S-class -- not exactly state-of-the-art. Disillusioned and lacking a clear strategy, previous brand leadership was very close to putting Maybach out of its misery.

Can Maybach be mended?
A (slightly) less expensive sedan and maybe even an SUV might be prescribed to wake the brand from its sales coma.The plan was nothing if not ambitious: Dust off a long-dead nameplate with zero recognition, take on Rolls-Royce for the title of Best-or at least Most Expensive-Car in the World, and sell about 1000 examples a year to the superrich.

The plan was nothing if not ambitious: Dust off a long-dead nameplate with zero recognition, take on Rolls-Royce for the title of Best--or at least Most Expensive--Car in the World, and sell about 1000 examples a year to the superrich.

You might think that linking the words "sporty" and "Maybach" creates the ultimate automotive oxymoron, but a sporty Maybach is exactly what American buyers--who account for 50 percent of the car's world market--want, the automaker says.

The 57S-the S is for Special-features a bored and stroked 6.0-liter version of the "regular" car's twin-turbo V-12, which here makes 604 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque. All that oomph means the 57S will blast to 60 mph in five seconds and reach a top speed of 172 mph. A lower ride height, stiffer damping, and thicker antiroll bars affirm its sporting intentions. The 57S is available with black or silver paint and boasts carbon-fiber and piano-lacquer trim in place of the usual exotic woods.

A nice man just arrived at my house to take away the metallic two-tone (Tiege light gray and Rocky Mountain light brown) Maybach 62 that we've been driving for the past ten days. During that time, we have told at least one hundred curious, sometimes awestruck fellow travelers what a Maybach is, how it's pronounced ("MY-bock"), how fast it goes (very), and how much it costs (plenty). My wife became an expert at putting them into the reclining rear seats and demonstrating the refrigerator, the audiovisual system, the electroluminescent roof panel, the electrically managed curtains, and the snappy little receptacles that hold a pair of champagne flutes for rear-seat celebrants. Somehow, the fact that our Maybach did not have the optional glass partition between driver and passengers made everything seem very democratic and congenial. The only person who did not ask for the full tour and demonstration was the state trooper who ticketed Mrs. Davis for going 90 mph on I-90 outside Deadwood, South Dakota.

This is my kind of show car. The two-seat land yacht measures 232 inches from bow to stern, exceeding the stately Maybach 57 on which it is based by the length of a Davidoff stogie--if that's not overkill, I don't know what is. Equally outlandish is the engine, a frighteningly free-breathing, twin-turbocharged, 5.9-liter V-12 that coughs up max power of 691 hp and 752 lb-ft of very low-end torque.

You'll read the full story about the Maybach Exelero in the August issue of Automobile Magazine. Get a first look by downloading these wallpaper photos.

Mercedes-Benz released an even more powerful version of its Maybach 57 at Geneva in an effort to jump-start sluggish sales of its ultraluxury brand. The 57S (the S stands for Special) has an AMG-tuned, 6.0-liter, twin-turbo V-12 engine that churns out 612 hp, which is 45 hp more than the "normal" 57, and an incredible 734 lb-ft of torque, enough to propel pampered passengers to 60 mph in less than 5.0 seconds. Those with a keen eye will recognize this engine from the Mercedes-Benz CL-, SL-, and S65 AMG models. The suspension is slightly firmer, and the ride height has been lowered by a bit more than half an inch. Maybach found the most ungainly twenty-inch wheels this side of 8 Mile Road and shod them with Michelin Pilot Sport tires. Two exterior colors--black and silver--will be offered when the 57S goes on sale in December, and buyers can choose from two interior color combinations: white leather seats with black piping, or black seats with white piping, both with carbon-fiber interior trim. The effect is reminiscent of a cocaine dealer's living room, circa 1989, with a bit of carbon fiber tacked on. Exterior changes include chrome foglamps and blacked-out headlamp surrounds. Expect the 57S to cost upwards of $400,000--more than double the price of the Mercedes-Benz models with the same engine.

Mercedes-Benz released an even more powerful version of its Maybach 57 in an effort to jump-start sluggish sales of its ultraluxury brand. The 57S (the S stands for Special) has an AMG-tuned, 6.0-liter, twin-turbo V-12 engine that churns out 612 hp, which is 45 hp more than the "normal" 57, and an incredible 734 lb-ft of torque, enough to propel pampered passengers to 60 mph in less than 5.0 seconds. Those with a keen eye will recognize this engine from the Mercedes-Benz CL-, SL-, and S65 AMG models. The suspension is slightly firmer, and the ride height has been lowered by a bit more than half an inch. Maybach found the most ungainly twenty-inch wheels this side of 8 Mile Road and shod them with Michelin Pilot Sport tires. Two exterior colors--black and silver--will be offered when the 57S goes on sale in December, and buyers can choose from two interior color combinations: white leather seats with black piping, or black seats with white piping, both with carbon-fiber interior trim. The effect is reminiscent of a cocaine dealer's living room, circa 1989, with a bit of carbon fiber tacked on. Exterior changes include chrome foglamps and blacked-out headlamp surrounds. Expect the 57S to cost upwards of $400,000--more than double the price of the Mercedes-Benz models with the same engine.

John Evans was a high-spirited Welshman who seemed to be perpetually in motion. He became our boss on August 1, 1985, when we joined Murdoch Magazines and went to work on the project that would become Automobile Magazine. He was a keen deep-water sailor with three Atlantic crossings to his credit, and he was also a surprisingly talented driver of vintage racing cars. During the short time that he was our overseer, he had a Morgan, an Austin-Healey 100, and a replica C-type Jaguar, which came to grief one night when he was driving it through the Holland Tunnel to his home in rural New Jersey. My memory of the Healey was that it had suffered every known performance tweak and was about as appropriate for a pur-sang vintage sports-car event as a Smokey Yunick Indy car.

Paris saw the premiere of the short-wheelbase Maybach 57; its longer sister (the Maybach 62) made its own debut early this July in New York. Although the cars are virtually identical on the inside, Maybach treats them as separate vehicle lines—and both models are expected to carry the brand, according to Mercedes' American chief, Paul Halata. If wheelbase equals comfort, then the 57 is the second most luxurious vehicle in the world, featuring twenty-one speakers, rear seats that recline like international business class airline seats, and thousands of potential design permutations depending on each individual custom job. —Global Auto Net