Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz set up Mercedes Benz in the 1880s. It is said that these two men in fact had never met each other! They worked independently of each other and Daimler looked after the racing cars. A dealer from Austria by the name of Emil Jellinek got the cars into races and was very successful. He named the cars Mercedes after his daughter.
Eventually Jellinek placed a large order from Daimler and his friend Wilhelm Maybach. They were in agreement that Jellnek could modify some of the designs.
In 1886 Benz built his 1st motorized tricycle. The 1st 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 produced his first truck.
It is said that Daimler never got pleasure from 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 capable of reaching top speeds off 55mph.
At the start of the 1st World War both factories had to turn their hand to the production of war materials, although both of them reverted back to the production of cars after the war. However with fuel being scarce and a 15% luxury tax car production was affected badly.
The economy in Germany became 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 them from the UK and over half were in fact Fords. The Mercedes was considered too expensive.
In 1926 a new insignia was designed in the form of a three pointed star wreathed with laurel to signify the merger of Benz and DMG.
In the 1930s their biggest & most prestigious car was introduced, it was called the 770 Grosser and was powered by an 8 cylinder, 7.six litre engine. The cars in this era produced success on the racing circuits.
In 1945 after the war, the plant at Unterturkheim which had been bombed out had to stop their car production and instead produced trailers for bicycles.
In 1946 the production of cars was resumed and by 1949 a diesel version of the 170 was being made 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 in the world to fit a 4 valve diesel engine into a car. This new engine offers enhanced performance and smoothness which is what the Mercedes name stands for.