Wilhelm Maybach - Zeppelin Engines (1908)

Zeppelin Engines (1908)

In 1900, Maybach had had his first contact with Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who sought to improve the engines of the Zeppelin LZ1 airship. Maybach built some engines for him based on sketches of a 150 hp unit created by his son, Karl, while at DMG.

In 1908, Count Zeppelin attempted to sell his models LZ3 and LZ4 to the government. On 5 August, LZ4 exploded against a row of trees after attempting an emergency landing when its engines failed. This was far from being the end for the airship project as 6.25 million goldmarks were raised in a donation campaign after the accident. Count Zeppelin founded the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, the company that built the Zeppelin airships.

Maybach had to hold off joining the new company for a while as he was still in litigation with DMG so Karl took his place. On 23 March 1909, a deal was finally signed, creating an engine subsidiary to Luftschiffbau Zeppelin at Bissingen/Enz, in Württemberg. Wilhelm Maybach was Technical Assistant and Karl was Technical Manager. Their first designs reached 72 km/h (45 mph).

Wilhelm Maybach moved his company to Friedrichshafen and renamed it Luftfahrzeug-Motoren-GmbH. Karl and Wilhem held 20% of the shares with an arrangement for Karl to inherit. They kept supplying Zeppelin, but worked on other airship engines too. In 1912, the company adopted the name Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH (Maybach Engine Construction Company). In 1916, they developed a 160 hp aircraft engine which sold 2000 units before the end of World War I. In 1916, Wilhelm Maybach was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Technical University of Stuttgart.