Wilhelm (45) decides to leave the DMG (Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft = Daimler Engine Corporation). He continues supporting Gottlieb (57) in his automotive research and development in his apartment at ‘Königstraße’ in Cannstatt and in the garden hall of the former Hotel Hermann. (12 employees were hired).

The so-called 'belle epoque' from the 1870s to the 1910s saw years of prosperity which were a nourishing ground for new fashions, among which a craze for speed that started out with bicycles and quickly escalated to cars. Emil Jellinek, a well-connected businessman was among one of the enthusiasts of this entirely new sub-culture. He commissioned a new kind of vehicle at the Daimler Engine Company which was specifically designed for races. It was supposed to be named after Mercedes, Jellinek's daughter whose name he had already used in races before. Wilhelm Maybach took care of this difficult job. The result was the first Mercedes automobile: a combination of a new kind of chassis with a lower point of gravity and a powerful, reliable 35 hp engine. Maybach also provided another constructive feature: the 'honeycomb cooler'. This vehicle was an essential step towards the modern automobile and left its origins in carriage manufacturing behind. The unique car lived on in different iterations in a very successful series, the 'Mercedes Simplex'. It was the beginning of a new era, the Mercedes era, as Paul Meyan, president of the French Automobile club coined it in 1901.

1909 saw the establishment of a new company, the so called Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH. It had been the result of Wilhelm Maybach being banned from working in engine construction as he had left DMG prior. Under the supervision and guidance of his father, Karl Maybach had been developing a new racing car engine. The latter seemed also a good fit for aerial applications. Wilhelm Maybach used his contacts to Count Zeppelin who had been facing backlashes due to unreliable engines. The cooperation of Zeppelin and Maybach began - far from Lake Constance, in Bissingen, where a local machine factory was to become the supplier of parts for the new developments.