2005 Maybach Exelero

Fulda’s arguments were very clear right from the start:

Leon Hustinx, the Director of Sales and Marketing at Maybach, was so impressed by the Exelero project that he quickly and unbureaucratically provided Fulda with the platform of a Maybach 57 limousine. How to conjuring up a sports coupé from it? For Jürgen Weissinger, head of development at Maybach, this was not the first tricky question. He is more familiar with the engineering of the Maybach than anyone else and, as project manager in pre-development, he has produced numerous feasibility studies for the make. When comparing the dimension concepts of the Fulda streamlined car of 1938 with the 57 platform, an astonishing correlation of measurements already emerged. Although today’s Maybach is about 290 mm longer, e.g. in the wheelbase, the breadth and height of the veteran car strongly resembled the 57’s dimensions.

That simplified construction considerably. Nevertheless, a great number of details had to be changed, among others:

The development work connected with the rim and the wheel proved equally tricky. Rolf Dieter Stohrer, Senior Manager Car Tires and responsible for wheel and tire technology in the Fulda project team contacted several rim manufacturers and realized the rim called for in the design with Ronal. The corresponding design was milled by Ronal from a complete piece of metal, i.e. from a solid block weighing 257 kilograms a rim measuring 11.0 x 23 inches was produced with a weight of just 23 kg. All four rims were individually produced and because they are turbine wheels, the direction of movement had to be taken into account. Thus, two were produced for the left side and two for the right. However, these Ronal rims are only needed for the "See true" vehicle model. This is the exact copy of the Exelero sports coupé which, however, is not used in the road but merely at show events.

The real rims for the high speed tests come from ATP-Excentric in Bremen. The reason: the ATP rims have a cross spoke design which can be simply fully-panelled for the speed tests. This procedure means an additional 3-4 km/h for such gigantic 23-inch wheels. The air pressure of the tires will amount to 3.6 bar for the high speed tests. As a rim can bear a load of 1,050 kilograms, for example, the load on the rear axle of 1,400 kilograms is no problem, i.e. there is a sufficient reserve. After all technical requirements included in the engineers’ specifications had been checked, the tests began.