GOTTLIEB DAIMLER & KARL BENZ FORM MERCEDES-BENZ

The Grandma & her Mercedes-Benz

Today, The Grandma has gone to the Transport Inspection to check her car. She has got a beautiful Mercedes-Benz and she was a little worried about the possibility of not getting over the mechanical test.

The Grandma loves her car and she decided to buy it some decades ago because she is a great fan of Mercedes-Benz marque, synonymous of elegance and security. The Grandma wants to remember the story of this great enterprise while she is waiting for her turn in the mechanical workshop.

Mercedes-Benz is a German global automobile marque and a division of Daimler AG. The brand is known for luxury vehicles, buses, coaches, and trucks. The headquarters is in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The name first appeared in 1926 under Daimler-Benz.

In 2018, Mercedes-Benz was the biggest selling premium vehicle brand in the world, having sold 2.31 million passenger cars.

Mercedes-Benz traces its origins to Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft's 1901 Mercedes and Karl Benz's 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, which is widely regarded as the first gasoline-powered automobile. The slogan for the brand is the best or nothing.

Mercedes-Benz traces its origins to Karl Benz's creation of the first petrol-powered car, the Benz Patent Motorwagen, financed by Bertha Benz and patented in January 1886, and Gottlieb Daimler and engineer Wilhelm Maybach's conversion of a stagecoach by the addition of a petrol engine later that year.

Mercedes-Benz

The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (Daimler Motors Corporation).

Emil Jellinek, a European automobile entrepreneur who worked with DMG, created the trademark in 1902, naming the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek.

Jellinek was a businessman and marketing strategist who promoted horseless Daimler automobiles among the highest circles of society in his adopted home, which, at that time, was a meeting place for the Haute Volée of France and Europe, especially in winter.

His customers included the Rothschild family and other well-known personalities. But Jellinek's plans went further: as early as 1901, he was selling Mercedes cars in the New World as well, including US billionaires Rockefeller, Astor, Morgan and Taylor.

At a race in Nice in 1899, Jellinek drove under the pseudonym Monsieur Mercédès, a way of concealing the competitor's real name as was normal and very regularly done in those days. The race ranks as the hour of birth of the Mercedes-Benz brand.

More information: Mercedes-Benz

In 1901, the name Mercedes was registered by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) worldwide as a protected trademark.

The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benz's and Gottlieb Daimler's companies into the Daimler-Benz company on 28 June of the same year.

Gottlieb Daimler was born on 17 March 1834 in Schorndorf. After training as a gunsmith and working in France, he attended the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart from 1857 to 1859. After completing various technical activities in France and England, he started working as a draftsman in Geislingen in 1862. At the end of 1863, he was appointed workshop inspector in a machine tool factory in Reutlingen, where he met Wilhelm Maybach in 1865.

Throughout the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz produced the 770 model, a car that was popular during Germany's Nazi period. Adolf Hitler was known to have driven these cars during his time in power, with bulletproof windshields. Most of the surviving models have been sold at auctions to private buyers. One of them is currently on display at the War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario. The pontiff's Popemobile has often been sourced from Mercedes-Benz.

In 1944, 46,000 forced laborers were used in Daimler-Benz's factories to bolster Nazi war efforts. The company later paid $12 million in reparations to the laborers' families.

Mercedes-Benz has introduced many technological and safety innovations that later became common in other vehicles.  

Karl Benz & Gottlieb Daimler

Mercedes-Benz is one of the best-known and established automotive brands in the world. As part of the Daimler AG company, the Mercedes-Benz Cars division includes Mercedes-Benz and Smart car production.

The two companies which were merged to form the Mercedes-Benz brand in 1926 had both already enjoyed success in the new sport of motor racing throughout their separate histories.

A single Benz competed in the world's first motor race, the 1894 Paris–Rouen, where Émile Roger finished 14th in 10 hours 1 minute. Throughout its long history, the company has been involved in a range of motorsport activities, including sports car racing and rallying.

More information: The Hew York Times

On several occasions Mercedes-Benz has withdrawn completely from motorsport for a significant period, notably in the late 1930s, and after the 1955 Le Mans disaster, where a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR rammed another car (An Austin-Healey), took off into the stands, and killed more than 80 spectators. Stirling Moss and co-driver Denis Jenkinson made history by winning the 1955 Mille Miglia road race in Italy during a record-breaking drive with an average speed of almost 98 mph in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR.

Although there was some activity in the intervening years, it was not until 1987 that Mercedes-Benz returned to front line competition, returning to Le Mans, Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM), and Formula One with Sauber.

The 1990s saw Mercedes-Benz purchase British engine builder Ilmor, now Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines, and campaign IndyCars under the USAC/CART rules, eventually winning the 1994 Indianapolis 500 and 1994 CART IndyCar World Series Championship with Al Unser, Jr. at the wheel.

The 1990s also saw the return of Mercedes-Benz to GT racing, and the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, both of which took the company to new heights by dominating the FIA's GT1 class.

Mercedes-Benz is currently active in four motorsport categories, Formula Three, DTM, Formula One and GT3.

More information: Daimler

 You have to think about whether that Mercedes-Benz

you have is actually worth how much it costs to you.

Kristin Scott Thomas