Automotive Pioneer, Industrialist. He was one of the first automobile manufacturers in Germany. With his lifelong partner Gottlieb Daimler, he invented the first fast-running petrol engine (1885). A smaller version of this engine was used later that year to create the first true motorcycle. In 1886, they built from a carriage the first four-wheel power driven vehicle with a combustion engine. The motor was also used in boats, trolleys, and airships. He was the technical director in the Daimler Motor Company. In 1902, after Daimler’s death, he used this technology in a new car–the first Mercedes. Due to disagreements with the new managment of Daimler, he left in 1907 to found his own company, Maybach Motorenbau, and produced engines for Zeppelin (including the “Graf Zeppelin”) and after World War I luxury cars called “Maybach”. In 1916 he received an honorary doctorate from the Stuttgart Institute of Technology (now Universitaet Stuttgart). In 1926 the company merged into Daimler-Benz. According to his obituary in “Time Magazine” in 1930, he was the “inventor of the spray carburetor, honeycomb radiator, (and) change-speed gear”. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1996. The Maybach line of luxury cars was reintroduced to the Daimler-Benz lineup in 2002. (bio by: Kenneth Gilbert)  Family links:  Spouse:  Bertha Habermaahs Maybach (1851 – 1931)*  Children:  Emma Maybach (1892 – 1974)* *Calculated relationship