Early Luxury cars not so simple

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

How hard is driving a modern car? Start it up, stick it in gear and away you go. Steer it and stop it. Simple, eh. The tough part is sharing the road with other cars.

But go back a few decades, to the early 1930s, when cars were mechanical minefields and there were few road rules. Even following the carmakers' handbook could be confusing. More so if it was a luxury model.

You're a bigwig living in a 16th-century castle in Germany. You have more money than you can shake a stick at and you've spent some of it on Germany's finest luxury tourer, the 5.5m-long, 12-cylinder DS8 Maybach Zeppelin. Sight unseen.

Yours is one of only 182 made. Karl Maybach, son of Wilhelm, who made the first Mercedes-Benz, made it at his plant near Lake Constance. It was delivered yesterday. Your chauffeur parked it in the castle's converted coachhouse. He's on a day off.

You're pretty swish. Anyone who's anyone drives a Maybach. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie has one. So do King Paul of Greece and the heirs to the Dutch throne, Princess Juliana and Prince Bernard. The Indian maharajas of Jaipur, Potila and Kolhapur tool around in Maybachs, too.

You rise from your four-poster and peer out at the day. It's warm and clear. Breakfast will be typical of a well-heeled German house in the 1930s: boiled eggs, bread rolls, dark bread, ham, Swiss cheese, coffee, fresh cream, marmalade and honey. The coffee is from your plantation in Brazil.

After breakfast, you head for the coachhouse and the Maybach. You want to see what you got for your money. Mmmm, not bad. It looks so good you decide to take it for a drive. No need to talk to the chauffeur about it. He works for you.

You ease yourself into the driver's seat and gaze at the instrument panel on the dashboard.

There is a mileage counter, speedometer, fuel gauge for the 135-litre tank, eight-day clock, coolant temperature gauge, oil-pressure gauge, vacuum-pressure gauge for the booster brake, starter-injection control, starter button, manual throttle and starter flap controls and instrument lighting.

Then you open the manual. It's a doozy. You wished you had talked to your chauffeur after all. It says, "Maybach Zeppelin operating and servicing instructions, 1932", and includes the advice:

Starting the engine:

* Switch on the contact-body ignition. Activate the fuel-injection pump four or five times, then wait for two or three minutes. Turn the manual throttle lever slightly so that the carburettor is opened by about a quarter. Adjust the manual ignition adjuster to ignition advance, i.e., push the button.

* Move the gearshift lever into centre, i.e., the idle position. Pull the starter flap and release slowly again after the first firing. (Starter flap should be used above all at low ambient temperatures.) Allow the engine to warm up slowly until operating temperature is reached.

Starting off:

* Press the clutch and engage first gear (move the shift lever to the right and backwards, and both levers on the steering wheel downwards). Release the parking brake, at the same time slowly release the clutch pedal and press the accelerator lightly.

* On a steep hill, where first gear may not suffice to start off, it is recommended that gear 1a be engaged (move the shift lever to the right and forwards and both levers on the steering wheel downwards).

* You should always start off in first gear. When shifting up or down, second and third gear can be skipped without problem. Before reversing, the car has to be stationary: press the clutch, move the shift lever forwards and to the left and both steering wheel levers downwards, then release the clutch.

Shifting into a higher gear:

* When the car has set off, the small levers can be adjusted to the desired higher gear without operating the clutch and without having to take your foot off the accelerator. Following this, you have to release the accelerator completely to press the accelerator again after a short waiting period of one or two seconds. The desired gear is engaged automatically. During the short waiting period, engine speed is lowered and the shift dogs in the transmission engage automatically.

Shifting into a lower gear:

* First adjust both levers on the steering wheel to the lower gear desired, then take your foot off the accelerator pedal only to press the pedal again softly without delay. The upward shift is performed automatically, merely through the raising of engine speed.

Switching off the engine:

* Take your foot off the accelerator pedal and press the brake pedal. Declutch. Move the shift lever into idle position. Engage the parking brake. Set both levers on the steering wheel to the downward-pointing position. Switch off the ignition, i.e., turn the key into "0" position and remove key.

Maybach these days comes under the control of Mercedes-Benz, and will next year launch its first luxury limousine in more than 60 years. The one New Zealander who has already inquired about the megabucks model will find its handbook simple by comparison.