Mercedes-Benz is the outcome of amalgamation between two brands, Mercedes and Benz. Having seen already the story of Karl Benz, the man who invented the automobile and the founder of Benz & Cie, it is time to explore around the Mercedes brand.

Whilst in 1885 Karl Benz was working on his ‘Patent Motor Car’ in his own factory in Mannheim, some miles southern, in Stuttgart, a middle-aged engineer along with his business partner were working on their own project too. Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach were about to introduce their developed four-stroke petrol engine, which was smaller, lighter, and more powerful than ever before. That patent, which was granted in 1885, was truly an innovation compared to existed four-stroke engines and led these two men to give flesh and bones to their project, producing the world’s first four-wheel automobile at the end of 1886.

Born in 1834 in Schorndorf, Gottlieb Daimler was the son of a baker. His interest in engineering soon drove him to leave his hometown at the age of 18 to study mechanical engineering in Stuttgart. After studying at School for Advanced Training in the Industrial Arts and at Stuttgart’s Polytechnic Institute, Daimler worked in some of the Germany’s and England’s top engineering firms. In 1863, while he worked as inspector and executive in a company which made tools, he met Wilhelm Maybach, a 15-year-old student with great talent in industrial design. The relationship between the two men throughout their common career was something like father’s and son. Daimler considered Maybach as ‘bridge to the future’ and that was the reason that he was always trying to take him along in every professional step he did and eventually to make him partner in Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) (in English – Daimler Motor Company) in 1890.

When Gottlieb Daimler decided to move a step forward and work on his vision of ‘motorisation’, he was almost 50 years-old, remarried with a woman 22 years his junior and with seven children to worry. Add to this that he was also facing severe health issues. Perhaps, these were the actual reasons of his impatience for innovation so as to secure a strong financial position for his family. Nevertheless, whichever the reason is, he and his friend/partner Maybach, along with a very interesting man that we will see in the course called Emil Jellinek, managed to distinguish themselves with their innovative spirit and eventually to set strong foundation for the future of automotive industry.

Daimler was an ambitious man and when the opportunity to start his own business closer to home, in Cannstatt, arose, he took it. He bought a new house with a green house in the grounds which immediately turn out as workshop for him and Maybach. The first engine that the two men worked on was radical for the time, since by then there were only big, heavy and low revving four-stroke engines according to Otto’s principal. Having set in their new design an ignition system that allowed the engine to run at speeds higher than conventional engines could achieve, their next target was to reduce the size and weight so as to being able to fit in a bicycle-like frame. The outcome of that successful experiment was the world’s first motorcycle in 1885.

‘The overcrowding on the trains in summer and the constraints of the railroads were abhorrent to me, and led to the idea of self-propelled driving’. Gottlieb Daimler, 1881

Having reduced the weight and the size of their engine and while experimenting with engines for other transport means, such as motorboats (1885), in 1886 Daimler and Maybach introduced their first car which was also the world’s first four-wheel automobile. The engine of the two men was fitted in a carriage – in contrary with Benz’s car – and that was clearly an innovation. However, in the late 1880s, Daimler realized that he had spent a great amount of his personal money for his projects and profits were thin or non-existed, thus he started searching for partners for his business.

In 1890, Max Duttenhofer and Wilhelm Lorenz invested 200,000 marks each in the new company but soon the new partners outmanoeuvred Daimler in the running of the newly founded Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG). Likewise, Maybach, who was always marched along with Daimler, unhappy with the terms of his contract, left a year later. The relationship among Daimler and the two partners worsened further, as on the one hand the former was interested more in vehicle production while on the other hand, the others wanted to produce more lucrative stationary engines. The final stroke for by now unwell Daimler, occurred in 1894, when he was threatened with either to pay off a vast debt or to turn his shareholding over to them. Eventually, Daimler left the company to work with Maybach.

‘Trusting the promises of friends, I signed and left the power to them. Now I see that I was deceived.’ Daimler wrote in 1893 in his diaries and later: ‘In my whole life I have never been judged so badly as by this pack of wolves in sheep’s clothing’. 

Coincidentally, a year later (1895), british industrialists approached DMG to buy the rights of Daimler’s and Maybach’s engine for the huge sum of 350,000 marks, but only on the condition that Daimler and Maybach will return to the company. The partners agreed and the time that the two men returned, the company’s fortune turn-around immediately, mainly due to strong new designs that Maybach had developed as long as he worked alone. However, things for Daimler were going bad, as he spent the next four years fighting his heart disease. Finally, Daimler succumbed in his illness and died in March 1900.

Gottlieb Daimler’s death did not trumpeted the end of DMG. Actually, as with Benz & Cie after Karl’s departure, DMG performed better in the early years of 20th century. The key to this success was Wilhelm Maybach and his new partner Emil Jellinek, the man whose daughter lend her name to the car that changed the company’s fortune. ‘The Mercedes car was a synthesis of the ideas of an open-minded businessman and bon-vivant and those of a meticulous technician with all the exaggerated piety of his native Schwabia’, wrote Niemann in his biography of Maybach.

Emil Jellinek was an Austo-Hungarian businessman with a clever strategic plan. His first involvement with DMG was in 1897 when he visited Cannstatt from his home Nice to buy a 6 hp belt-driven car capable of just 15 mph. Being interested in races, Jellinek ordered four further cars the next year that they were capable of 25 mph and he finally managed to draw company’s attention and his plan seemed working well. His next move was to write a letter said that: ‘I do not like the position of the engine… the engine replaces the horse, therefore it should be in the front’, and he continued, ‘I want a four cylinder engine – I know you will say it is impossible… But look into it and don’t put it on the side’. Admittedly demanding customer, however his demands were accompanied with a further order of six cars. Chief engineer Wilhelm Maybach was tempted for that challenge.

The 28 hp Daimler Phoenix, developed by Maybach was the response to Jellinek’s letter, with front engine and a four-cylinder design the car had a high centre of gravity and heavy lines. In 1900, a month after Daimler’s death, a tragedy occurred with the DMG factory foreman, Wilhelm Bauer, killed in the first corner of a hill climb driving the Phoenix and the company announced it was withdrawing from competition. However, Emil Jellinek who had already joined the board of DMG, managed to persuade the company that it would be ‘commercial suicide’ to withdraw, and he proposed that was needed a totally new car, lighter, lower, and longer than Phoenix and with at least 35 hp. His argument was that such a car would not only win races but it would sell itself, plus that he would order 36 such cars with total value of over half a million marks.

DMG could not refuse such an offer and eventually accepted. Jellinek, however, set two conditions for the accomplishment of the agreement. The first was that he would have the exclusive rights to sell cars in France, Austria, Belgium and the USA and the second condition was that the cars should be badged under the name ‘Mercedes’, the name of his daughter. After over 15 years of proudly displaying the Daimler name, the company seems almost immediately to agree with Jellinek’s request, and the name Mercedes was finally registered in June 1902.

The car and the brand, went from well to better and the new Mercedes, having won its debut race at Nice in 1901, was fitted in a different, more comfortable body and became a quite car capable driving around the city. DMG sales increased dramatically from 1903 to 1905 with 232 and 863 cars being sold respectively.

The following years, Mercedes reinforced with a new model in its range called ‘Simplex’ and set higher standards in the industry. The ‘Simplex’, despite its name was a quite complex car in terms of technology. It was equipped with magneto electric-spark ignition system and in each cylinder – out of four – a single spray-nozzle carburetor functioned, featuring a new atomization system, improved by preheating. From 1905 and then, the Mercedes introduced into ‘Simplex’ new cast-steel wheels, while the original model of 1902 used wooden wheels. ‘Simplex’ was a car that gave more prestige to Mercedes as well as more profits while the resonance obtained beyond the german borders was incredible.

As far as concern Maybach things gone different. After the death of Duttenhofer, the one of the two directors of DMG and Maybach’s principal supporter on the board, Lorenz, the other director, made clear his dislike of Maybach and eventually replaced the chair of technical manager hiring Friedrich Nallinger. Maybach left the company in 1907 and after spending a considerable amount of time working on other projects such as on Zeppelin engines, he returned in 1921 along with his son Karl, introducing their own luxury saloons under the name ‘Maybach’. These cars set new standards of luxury and performance that even the Mercedes-Benz of that era struggled to reach.

Emil Jellinek after Maybach’s departure from DMG also left the company in 1908, returning back to Nice where he built his own large repair facilities. His contribution in DMG was such that anyone can’t doubt. He supplied cars to all 150 members of Nice’s Automobile Club while he supported racing teams all over Europe. He sold over six hundred DMG-Mercedes models by 1908, making millions for DMG. It is worth to mention that in 1903 when Jellinek was 50, changed his name to Jellinek-Mercedes commenting: ‘This is probably the first time that a father has taken his daughter’s name’.

Despite the losses of such important personalities for the brand, Mercedes continued its upward course managing to be successful on the track and out of it. From 1901 onwards, the son of Gottlieb Daimler, Paul, had appeared in the foreground helping Maybach completing the original design of 1901 Mercedes. The following years, Paul Daimler took a lot of initiatives for sake of the brand, especially after Maybach’s departure as he served the company as chief engineer. He was also the one who designed the famous Mercedes logo, the three pointed star.

Until World War I broke out (1914) where the company forced to restrain its production only for military vehicles, the passion for innovation and advanced technology, clearly, marked the fate of DMG-Mercedes, signify it as a top-tier car manufacturer. More than ten years ago, Jellinek had told to Maybach: ‘I don’t want the car of today, or the one of tomorrow. I want the car of the day after tomorrow’. For Mercedes leadership was now in the blood of the company- and of the brand.

Emil Jellinek had managed to introduce into the brand the philosophy of customer focus, that distinguished immediately from its rivals. Having a Mercedes car that era meant – of course – that you were part of the high level of society earning a lot of money. Considering too that a DMG worker earned 1,500 marks per year and the cheapest Mercedes, the 8/22 hp, cost 6,500 marks, owing a Mercedes was clearly a privilege.

Hence, the key features in DNA of Mercedes-Benz today have their roots back, at the end of 19th century where Gottlieb Daimler in Stuttgart and Karl Benz in Mannheim were working on their projects giving them part of their character and endow them with the best values that make them special today.

Sources:

Leslie Butterfield: Enduring Passion – The story of Mercedes-Benz brand

http://www.wikipedia.com

Images: http://www.rangerollers.blogspot.co.uk