Mercedes-Benz Germany

Mercedes-Benz Germany: Mercedes-Benz is a global automobile producer and a division of the German company Daimler AG. The brand is known for luxury vehicles, buses, coaches, and trucks. 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. In 1901, first Mercedes automobile was marketed by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft.

Established

28 June 1926; 91 years ago

Headquarters

Stuttgart, Germany

Founder

Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler

Website

www.mercedes-benz.com

History

An Austrian automobile entrepreneur, Emil Jellinek, who worked with DMG created the trademark in 1902, naming the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek. The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926. On 28 June 1926, Mercedes Benz was formed with the merger of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler’s two companies. 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.

In 1862, after completing various technical activities in France and England, he started work as a draftsman in Geislingen. At the end of 1863, he was appointed as a workshop inspector in a machine tool factory in Reutlingen, where he met Wilhelm Maybach. In 1930s, Mercedes-Benz produced the 770 model, a car that was popular during Germany’s Nazi period. Most of the surviving models have sold at auctions to private buyers. One of them is currently on display at the War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.

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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. 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. In 1999, Mercedes-AMG became a majority owned division of Mercedes-Benz. he company was integrated into DaimlerChrysler in 1999 and on 1 January 1999 it became Mercedes-Benz AMG. Until 2003, Daimler’s ultra-luxury brand Maybach was under Mercedes-Benz cars division. It now exists under the Mercedes-Maybach name, with the models being ultra-luxury versions of Mercedes cars, such as the 2016 Mercedes-Maybach S600.

Motorsport

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

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. There some activity in the intervening years, it 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 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.

Formula One

Mercedes-Benz took part in the world championship in 1954 and 1955 but despite successful the company left the sport after just two seasons. So, Mercedes-Benz returned as an engine supplier in the 1990s and part-owned Team McLaren for some years, to which it has supplied engines engineered by Ilmor since 1995. The collaboration with McLaren had extended into the production of road going cars such as the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren.

In 2009, Ross Brawn’s newly conceived Formula One team, Brawn GP used Mercedes engines to help win the constructor’s championship, and Jenson Button to become champion in the F1 drivers’ championship. In 2014, Mercedes clinched its first F1 Constructor’s title with drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg with 3 races to go, after dominating much of the season. Mercedes repeated its dominance in 2015 in similar fashion, losing only 3 races out of 19 once again. Mercedes yet again dominated in 2016, losing only 2 races out of 21.

Robot Cars

In the 1980s, Mercedes built the world’s first robot car. Partially encouraged by Dickmanns’ success, in 1987 the European Union’s EUREKA programme initiated the Prometheus Project on autonomous vehicles, funded to the tune of nearly €800 million. A culmination point achieved in 1995, when Dickmanns’ re-engineered autonomous S-Class Mercedes took a long trip from Munich in Bavaria to Copenhagen in Denmark, and back. On highways, the robot achieved speeds exceeding 175 km/h (109 mph).

In October 2015, the company introduced the Vision Tokyo, a five-seat self-driving electric van powered by a hybrid hydrogen fuel-cell system. The super-sleek van touted as “a chill-out zone in the midst of megacity traffic mayhem.”