Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz set up Mercedes Benz in the 1880s. It is believed that these two men never in fact met each other! They worked independently of each other with Daimler maintaining the racing cars. A dealer from Austria by the name of Emil Jellinek got the cars to races and was very successful. The cars were named Mercedes after his daughter.
Eventually Jellinek placed a large order from Daimler and his friend Wilhelm Maybach. They were in agreement that Jellnek could change the designs.
1886 Benz built his first motorized tricycle. The first production car was the Benz Velo in 1894 which competed in the first recorded car race, Rouen to Paris. It was in 1895 that Benz first built his truck.
It is quoted that Daimler never enjoyed driving! In March 1990 he died which left overall control of the company to Wilhelm Mayback. By November of that year they had produced a special car, the Mercedes which was lighter and smaller than the average car of the day and was able to reach top speeds off 55mph.
At the start of the First World War both factories had to turn their hand to the production of war materials, however both of them reverted back to the production of cars after the war. With fuel being scarce plus a 15% luxury tax car production was affected badly.
The economy in Germany grew more desperate and a new Mercedes Benz would cost as much as 25 million marks. It is interesting to note that 15 million cars were registered throughout the world in 1923 and over 80% of these were from the United Kingdom & were in fact Fords. The Mercedes was thought to be too expensive.
In 1926 a new insignia was designed in the shape of a three pointed star wreathed with laurel to signify the merger of Benz and DMG.
In the 1930s their biggest and most prestigious car was introduced, called the 770 Grosser and was powered by an 8 cylinder, 7.six ltr engine. The cars in this era produced great success on the racing circuits.
In 1945 after the war, the plant at Unterturkheim which had been bombed out had to put their car production on hold and instead produced trailers for bicycles instead.
However in 1946 the production of cars was resumed and by 1949 a diesel version of the 170 was being produced which became a best seller.
Alongside all of these elegant car models a number of vans have been produced which are used a great deal for Mercedes van leasing. One such van is the Mercedes Sprinter which has the reputation for being highly reliable and fairly economical.
By the 1990s Mercedes became the first manufacturer worldwide to fit a 4 valve diesel engine in a car. This new engine offers enhanced performance plus smoothness which is all that the Mercedes name stands for.