Blunder Buses: Maybach 57 and 62

Envy, FOMO, frustration, hubris… These are not your usual motivators for the birth of a new car. The 2002 Maybach was at least as much a product of emotion as worthily rational activities such as market segment identification, production scheduling, sales forecasting and diligently developing the product itself.

Why the emotion? Because Mercedes-Benz had been comprehensively outplayed by its domestic rivals. And no contest means more than winning the corporate chess game against your home-grown competitors.

The starting gun fired when British engineering company Vickers announced in 1998 that it was to sell Rolls-Royce and Bentley, together with their Crewe factory. That this came during an era of automotive acquisition and high stakes mergers – Ford and Jaguar, GM and Saab, BMW and Rover, Daimler and Chrysler – only added to the big beasts’ purchasing urges.