After an unsuccessful attempt to take on Rolls-Royce and Bentley, Daimler is to close down its Maybach luxury brand.
We've known for a while the fate of the Maybach brand has been hanging in the balance, but it had been thought the badge would be demoted to a sub-brand or possibly given a second-generation version in partnership with Aston Martin.
Neither of those options appear to have come to fruition, however, and Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has told German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that "it would not be sensible to develop a successor model for the current Maybach".
Instead (and having reputedly spent a billion euros on Maybach), Daimler will likely turn to Mercedes and create a new flagship model for the three-pointed star that will cost 100,000-300,000 euros.
Originally, Daimler envisaged 1,000 examples of the quarter-million pound Maybach, but only managed to shift around 200 a year.