Heinrich Müller's lost Maybach (Founder of Schuco)

For the 1937 Toy Fair in Leipzig, Heinrich Müller, the founder of Schuco, built a unique, very expensive streamlined Maybach limousine. It was a one-off, for which you would pay the cost of a pre-war villa in the Berlin Grunewald! The basis of this very unusual car was the 1936 Maybach SW38 with 140 hp and a top speed of 190 km/h.

This streamlined limousine, with its striking single fin, is very reminiscent of the 1938 Adler Diplomat. Both cars were manufactured by Authenrieth. Whether the single fin really had a stabilizing effect on the Maybach is not known. Experts like Reinhard Freiherr von Koenig-Fachsenfeld doubted it.

In 1937, a metallic finish as we know it today did not exist. At the time, one did not speak of painting a car, but of colored enamel. Fish scales were added to the enamel to achieve the metallic effect. Bugatti did it too. Extravagant colours were a status symbol at the time and enhanced the unique shapes of the cars.

This incredible Maybach attracted a huge audience and many dealers to the fair. Schuco presented its latest products, including the special Maybach-modelled Kommando 2000, which became a bestseller afterwards thanks to the Leipzig trade fair.

One of our customers of the model car told us the following story and photos: The German General Kesselring used the Maybach SW 38 as a personal car in Rome during and after the war. Our customer's grandfather, Vincenzo Platania, bought the Maybach from the von General Kesselring family in 1946 and was the last owner of the Maybach. Shortly after purchase, the Maybach was painted green metallic at Pininfarina in Turin and the interior was covered with light green leather. The car had eight seats, four in the front and four in the rear. The car was given the license plate ROMA 96306. The car was used by the family for a number of years, but then stood for a long time in the garage of a family villa outside Rome. In 1953 Vincenzo Platania had the Maybach scrapped.

Our customer has granted us the publication rights for the attached photos (taken in 1947/48) and allowed us to tell the above previously unknown story of the Maybach (including attribution).
 

In short: a model car solved an automobile-historical mystery. A very important contribution for friends and connoisseurs of automotive history. The rumor that an American GI took the Maybach back to America has thus turned out to be false.

Some interesting background: Schuco was founded in 1912 in Nuernberg by the passionate inventor and toolmaker Heinrich Müller. Heinrich Schreyer was his dealer and backer, so the Schreyer & Co toy company became Schuco . Initially only mechanical tin toys and Christmas tree decorations were produced. After the Second World War, the company rose to become the largest toy manufacturer in Europe with about 1000 employees.In 1976 Schuco had to file for bankruptcy.  This was followed by several changes of ownership, and in 1999 the Simba Dickie group  took over the company. Even today, Schuco is one of the biggest names in the international toy world.

Top tip: Only about 1,800 Maybachs were produced altogether. Today there are still about 160 in existence. The Maybach Museum (Holzgartenstraße 8, 92318 Neumarkt in the beautiful Upper Palatinate) has about 20 on show and is definitely worth a visit. In addition,Distance to Earthand Maybach - Registerby Verlag Hermann E. Sieger GmbH are well worth reading. Both can be obtained from us.

Reckless business or just clever

In 1928, Opel was at that time the largest German vehicle manufacturer and the "Opel Regent" was presented as a luxury car in a class of its own. Just 25 cars were made and sold, bought back and destroyed - because General Motors wanted to. Incredible!!

Wilhelm von Opel presented the luxury car at the Berlin motor show in 1928, but without the bodywork, only the chassis. The price was 14,000 Reichsmarks plus another five to six thousand to pay for the body and interior. This made the "Regent" about ten times more expensive than the Opel "Laubfrosch." A coupé version of the "Regent" in Baden-Baden won a 'beauty competition' in 1928. It is no surprise that the original colours, cobalt blue and beige, were considered very unusual and extravagant at that the time.

The "Opel Regent" had a six-liter engine that provided 110 horsepower and accelerated more than two tons of vehicle to 100 km/h. For extra power a sixth "overdrive" was offered, which enabled 130 km/h to be achieved. The engine itself was a sensation, as it was the only eight-cylinder ever developed by Opel. The coachwork probably came from the Kruck-Werke GmbH (1920 - 1929) from Frankfurt.

In 1929, Wilhelm and Friedrich Opel sold 80% of their company to the American automobile manufacturer General Motors. The purchase price was $33.352 million, more than half a billion euros today.

As agreed in the purchase agreement, General Motors demanded - in aunique piece of automotive history - to buy back all the "Opel Regents" sold and scrap them immediately. The existing tools, parts, brochures and plans also had to be destroyed. GM feared the competition for their upper class Cadillacs and Buicks, which were clearly more expensive.

Just imagine: what if an Opel Regent had survived …?

The big puzzle around X-252

A very special Mercedes sports car was a 500K from 1935, which the super-rich Chinese Tan Tjoan Keng ordered at the Oegstgeester "Garage Rooyakkers". Tan came from a super-rich Chinese family who traded raw materials from Jakarta (Indonesia). Tan lived, among other places, in a house in Oegstgeest, a suburb of Leiden in southwest Holland, was multilingual and spoke among other languages also German.

This wonderful 500 K was manufactured in the bodywork in Sindelfingen under the direction of Hermann Ahrens. The 500K was referred to as a "special streamlined car", was luxuriously equipped and nothing was left to chance: the seats could be folded to reclining seats, and the opening windows behind the doors could be completely sunk into the body. The passenger had a pull-out tray under the dashboard. This was equipped with a reading lamp above the glove compartment, a kind of desk, ideal for reading maps at night.

The spare wheels were hidden under the streamlined wheel covers. The tank had a capacity of 180 litres (instead of the usual 110 litres). The 500K "special streamlined car" was equipped with two 12 volt batteries and additional storage space - one for stowing a rifle! The 500 K had two pendulum-direction-indicator on each side: one in the spare wheel cover, and the second just behind the small opening window behind the car door. Reflecors at the ends of the bumpers both at the front and at the back were further safety installations.

What has become of X-252?

In spring 1935, the 500K "Spezial Stromlinienwagen" was picked up by Tan in Stuttgart. Extensive travel could be traced until 1938. In 1949, "Garage Rooyakkers" in Oegstgeest, where Tan had ordered the 500 K, offered the 500K "Spezial Stromlinienwagen" in the Dutch magazine "De Auto" for 16,000 guilders. Since then, every trace is lost!

Do you have any knowledge about the whereabouts of this particular 500K "special streamlined car? If so, please let us know!

The only known source 'Nobelkarosserien aus Berlin' has the headline 'An admiral in gala uniform'. And this sums it up quite excellently! On 6 July 1938, this unique Admiral was ordered by the Office for Raw Materials from the coachbuilder Erdmann & Rossi in Berlin (commission number 3123). Captain Karl Wilhelm Lapp from Berlin-Dahlem was responsible. The Admiral Sport Cabriolet was his official car, but he was also allowed to use it privately. From planning to completion, Captain Lapp photographed the individual work steps and documented this in an album. 

The resulting Admiral Sport Cabriolet on a 3.6 litre chassis had little in common with an Admiral from the official Opel delivery programme. Apart from its exceptionally elegant shape, it was very probably the only Opel Admiral ever to have free-standing front headlights. It was also the first car in the world to have an electric windscreen lifting system. Together with the company owner Richard Peters of Bosch and the chief designer Johannes Beeskow of Erdmann & Rossi, Lapp acquired patent no. 731943 'Electric spindle drive for car windows' for this on 25.01.1939. 

The Opel Admiral Sport Cabriolet had a split windscreen that could be folded forwards. The driver's seats were sleeper seats. The rear seats could be folded down to access the boot. The spare wheel was mounted in the boot. The radiator grille sloped more than usual , giving the whole body a distinctly elongated appearance and a fluid and sympathetically elegant shape. The normal Admiral chassis cost 4,260 Reichsmark (RM) at the time. Added to this were the costs for this sporty and elegant bodywork of 6,200 RM. The total cost was therefore 10,460 RM. In comparison: with a price of RM 38,000 for the saloon at the time, the "Big Mercedes" was one of the most expensive cars on the market at the time. The open-top version was even RM 6,500 more expensive. The average annual wage at the time was RM 2,100.

During the Second World War, the Opel Admiral Sport Cabriolet disappeared without a trace. If you have any documents or knowledge about this fantastic car, please let us know at info@autopioneer.de.

The only known source 'Nobelkarosserien aus Berlin' has the headline 'An admiral in gala uniform'. And this sums it up quite excellently! On 6 July 1938, this unique Admiral was ordered by the Office for Raw Materials from the coachbuilder Erdmann & Rossi in Berlin (commission number 3123). Captain Karl Wilhelm Lapp from Berlin-Dahlem was responsible. The Admiral Sport Cabriolet was his official car, but he was also allowed to use it privately. From planning to completion, Captain Lapp photographed the individual work steps and documented this in an album. 

The resulting Admiral Sport Cabriolet on a 3.6 litre chassis had little in common with an Admiral from the official Opel delivery programme. Apart from its exceptionally elegant shape, it was very probably the only Opel Admiral ever to have free-standing front headlights. It was also the first car in the world to have an electric windscreen lifting system. Together with the company owner Richard Peters of Bosch and the chief designer Johannes Beeskow of Erdmann & Rossi, Lapp acquired patent no. 731943 'Electric spindle drive for car windows' for this on 25.01.1939. 

The Opel Admiral Sport Cabriolet had a split windscreen that could be folded forwards. The driver's seats were sleeper seats. The rear seats could be folded down to access the boot. The spare wheel was mounted in the boot. The radiator grille sloped more than usual , giving the whole body a distinctly elongated appearance and a fluid and sympathetically elegant shape. The normal Admiral chassis cost 4,260 Reichsmark (RM) at the time. Added to this were the costs for this sporty and elegant bodywork of 6,200 RM. The total cost was therefore 10,460 RM. In comparison: with a price of RM 38,000 for the saloon at the time, the "Big Mercedes" was one of the most expensive cars on the market at the time. The open-top version was even RM 6,500 more expensive. The average annual wage at the time was RM 2,100.

During the Second World War, the Opel Admiral Sport Cabriolet disappeared without a trace. If you have any documents or knowledge about this fantastic car, please let us know at info@autopioneer.de.