Wilhelm Maybach - Daimler's "pact With The Devil", DMG, and The Phoenix Engine (1890 To 1900)

Daimler's "pact With The Devil", DMG, and The Phoenix Engine (1890 To 1900)

Resources were scant to keep the business going as neither the engine sales nor the worldwide proceeds from their patents were yielding enough money. Fresh capital was injected by bringing in the financiers Max von Duttenhofer and William Lorenz, former munitions makers, who were associated with Kilian von Steiner owner of a German investment bank. The company was taken public.

In 1890, Daimler and Maybach together founded the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, the Daimler Motor Company or DMG for short, which was dedicated to the construction of small high speed internal combustion engines for land, water, or air transport. Maybach was Chief Designer. After spending long hours debating which fuel was best to use in Otto's four-stroke engine, which had normally used methane gas as a fuel, they turned to petroleum which until then had been used mainly as a cleaner and sold in pharmacies.

The company's re-foundation took place on 28 November 1890. This has been regarded as a "pact with the devil" by some German historians, as the following decade was chaotic for Daimler and Maybach. DMG continued to expand, selling engines from Moscow to New York, and additional stationary engine-making capacity was added, but the belief continued that automobile production wouldn't be profitable. The new chairmen planned to merge DMG and Deutz-AG, in spite of Gottlieb's disagreement with Nikolaus Otto.

Daimler and Chief Engineer Maybach preferred to produce automobiles and reacted against Duttenhofer and Lorenz in particular. Maybach was rejected as a member of the Board of Management and left the company on 11 February 1891, and continued his design work from his own house, financed by Gottlieb Daimler. In late 1892, he set up a shop in the ballroom of the former Hermann Hotel and Winter Garden where he employed 17 workers, five of which were paid by Daimler.

In 1894 Maybach designed his third engine model, together with Daimler and his son Paul. Used in the Phoenix, it gained worldwide attention, pioneering the use of four cylinders in the automobile and featuring:

• single block casting of cylinders, arranged vertically and parallel to each other
• camshaft controlled exhaust valves
• spray-nozzle carburetor (patented by Maybach in 1893)
• improved belt drive

Maybach's creations are considered some of the finest motors of the second half of the 19th century. His inventions became indispensable for any model by any automaker in the world. He became recognised as the backbone of France's early automobile industry, where he was hailed as the "King of Constructors".

Daimler was forced out of his post as Technical Director at DMG and resigned in 1893, which damaged DMG's prestige. However, in 1894, a British industrialist, Frederick Simms, purchased the rights to the Phoenix engine for 350,000 marks and stabilised the companies finances. He also made it a condition that Daimler was re-employed. In 1895 DMG assembled its 1,000th engine, and Maybach also returned as Chief Engineer, obtaining 30,000 Goldmark worth of shares through his original contract with Gottlieb Daimler.

Maybach patented more automobile inventions, including:

• a revolutionary cooling system, tubular radiator with fan
• the honeycomb radiator

Around this time though Maybach suffered two setbacks. His teenage second son, Adolf, suffered a schizophrenia attack and spent the rest of his life in various mental institutions (In 1940 he was murdered by the Nazis as part of the Euthanasia Program). In 1900, Gottlieb Daimler died of heart disease.