The Maybach Zeppelin was the Maybach company’s Repräsentationswagen* model from 1929 to 1939. Named for the company’s famous production of Zeppelin engines prior to and during World War I, it was an enormous luxury vehicle which weighed approximately 3000 kg (6600 lb). This weight was so great that German drivers required an additional goods vehicle licence for vehicles over 2½ tons. Along with the Voisin, and behind the Daimler Double Six, this was Europe’s joint second luxury V12 car in production.
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Supplementing the DS7 from 1930 was the DS8** (Doppelganger). It sported an 8.0 L (7977 cc, 486 cubic inches) V12 which made 200 bhp (149 kW; 203 PS) at a fairly low 3200 rpm, putting the DS8 among the most powerful production cars in the world at the time. Depending on the weight of the coachwork, a top speed of 106 mph (171 km/h) was possible.
[wikipedia]
* Repräsentationswagen: “a vehicle that will make the biggest possible impact at the embassy, the opera or the country club.”
** DS8 stands for “doppel-sechs 8″, referring to “double six, 8 liters”, as in a V12 engine. I’m not sure why Wikipedia calls it the doppelgänger
The Spohn coachwork on this Maybach Zeppelin was at the forefront of the streamlined design movement that was gaining momentum in the early thirties. It was only natural for Wilhelm Maybach and his son Karl to be involved with such a state-of-the-art design. For years the pair worked with important objectives after first starting to build Zeppelin engines in 1909: the year 1921 brought their Maybach W3 luxury car with a 70 HP six cylinder* engine, the late twenties ended with five of their VL-2 12-cylinder 550 horsepower engines powering the famous Graf Zeppelin.
