were often substituted here after WWII.
"Mercedes" was the name of the beautiful 11-year old daughter of Emil Jellinek, an
Austrian businessman and consul who was one of Gottleib Daimler's and Wilhelm
Maybach's first customers and distributors (and directors)? Under his direction,
36 custom-built cars were first produced under the model name "Mèrcédes" in 1902
(wonder when they dropped the French accents?) and were so successful that he
added the name to his own under Austrian fiat in August 1903, becoming Emil
Jellinek-Mèrcédes.
Many of those early Mercedes were quickly stripped of passenger bodies, or never
fitted with them in the first place, and used for record-setting speed runs and road
races, the driver always riding with a mechanic, Ralph di Palma was one of the
top American drivers to race the big white Mercedes; he is (however misspelled as
"de Palmer") in #10 at possibly a Vanderbilt Cup Race just prior to WWI (my record
books are not yet unpacked), looking for all the world as if his left rear wheel is off the
ground (not at all an uncommon situation, then or now):
[Thumbnail image; click on picture for large image.]
(photo from an album - earlier provenance unknown - received "in the clear"
via e-mail;
obviously taken clearly through a glass darkly and reflectively - artificially lightened by
SB,III.)
"Mercedes" is properly pronounced Mare-Tsay'-Days?
"Daimler" is properly pronounced Die'm-lehr but the British
car, descended from a common ancestor, is pronounced Day'm-lur?
The "dreifach stern", the three-pointed star was first seen on a postcard from old
Gottleib to his wife, who herself was probably the first woman to drive a motorcar, on
which he drew a three-pointed star over a picture of his house in Deutz, stating to the
effect that "one day this star would rise over his factory and bring prosperity" (this is
a quotation from his sons in the Daimler-Benz history, not from Gottleib himself).
I have what I believe to be a better record somewhere, with a direct quotation and a
photo of the garage where Daimler and Maybach (his engineer) started, with a star
on its side wall, and hope eventually to find it and put it here. Daimler
copyrighted the star in 1911 and even a four-pointed version (Lincoln, look out!); later,
the surrounding ring was added and a circular band with the name Mercedes at the
bottom and four tiny dreifach sternen at the top was adopted for the badge in 1916.
The circled star became a radiator mascot in 1921. When Daimler and Benz
joined to ward off financial ruin in bad times (1924), the Benz laurel wreath and the
Mercedes star were superimposed with both names to form the badge still in use
today. However, the K/S/SS radiators had the two simple stars on either side
of the crease until some time in 1928 or so (as noted above).
The firm started as Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (Daimler Motors
Salescompany) and Benz & Cie (Company) and then became
Daimler Benz Aktiengesellschaft (Daimler Benz stock salescompany)?
I've forgotten, but I seem to recall that there was a GmbH tacked on at one
point in between (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung - Salescompany with limited
liability).
The Steinway piano factory on Queens Plaza in
Long Island City was the home and factory of the American Mercedes, built under
license (ca. 1896-1916) and was thus one of America's first auto factories
[it then became the home of the American Rolls-Royce].
On 16 Oct 98, whilst in England, I visited the fabulous
National Motor Museum (formerly the Montagu Motor Museum) at beautiful
Beaulieu (just south of Southampton) and was grievously disappointed to find no
SS Jaguars on display but was quite mollified to find a 1928 S Mercedes 36/220
Tourer, the ex-Peter Ustinov car in red with black wings and head (see
Survivors on the next page). Unfortunately for me, the head was up for its
periodic stretching and there are few cars extant whose lines are destroyed as badly
as the S/SS tourers with the head raised.
IN(EN)QUIRIES
I've had some (to me) weird in(en)quiries (why me, oh Lord?):
"WE WOULD LIKE TO FIND OUT WHY THE COLOUR SILVER IS USED BY MERCEDES BENZ
FORMULA ONE CARS. IS IT TRUE THAT THE CAR WAS ONLY SPRAYED SILVER
WHEN MERCEDES WON THEIR FIRST RACE??"
A Stuttgarter e-mailed the answer:
"The answer for the weird question is quite simple. WEIGHT! The color
for german race cars was white (just like for England it was green, for France blue,
Italy red and so on) There were already weight limits for the cars at that time,
the day before the start of the race the car had about 4Kg more than the minimum
weight allowed. So, in order to cut off the pounds they grinded off the paint,
and the aluminium body was silver. Due to the won Mercedes from now on
made their cars silver - That's no fake." {sic}
and then:
"Which series of Mercedes holds the undisputed highway land-speed record of 271.5
mph / kpm set sometime around the year 1938 and who drove it and where?"
This latter query presupposes it was the 540K, to which I snarled: "I haven't the
foggiest notion and, quite frankly, not the slightest interest. However, it seems
very highly unlikely to have been a 540K, at least not in stock form, as that was a
rather ungainly and overweight automobile. But then, I'm prejudiced in favor of
the S and SS series and even a wee bit toward the 500K, a slightly leaner beast.
The 540K was more like an undersized 770K Grösser than an oversized 380K."!
Churlish, ain't I?
If I'm not absolutely sure of my answer, I refer such to the factory archives:
Mercedes-Benz Classic Archiv, HPC G328, 70322 Stuttgart, DEUTSCHLAND.
Of course, there are also serious in(en)quiries:
(01 Jul 99) - A couple in Wisconsin {?} wrote about a 1974 Mercedes Model
206DG Camper, a stand up unit with stove, refrigerator, double bed, and a back
door that lifts up completely overhead, and it also also has sliding side door.
It sure sounds to me like one of the campers made by the same firm that made the
VW-Kombi conversions, Westfalia. On 17 Dec 00, I got an e-mail from a man
who had a 1966 Westfalia Camper and was willing to help; that's what makes all this
worth while!
19 Dec 00 - The couple with the '74 Camper ("Hannah") drove it to Alaska and back
(presumably) a while back, staying in it the whole way and advisesd that the
Campers were built by a combined venture of Hanomag/Henschel and Mercedes.
More in(en)quiries appear on Mercedes Page 3.
S and SS SURVIVORS - with IDs -
moved to Continuation Page 1 on 09 Jan 01).
MERCEDES BENZ BIBLIOGRAPHY -
moved to Continuation Page 1 on 09 Jan 01)
[For those interested in the Chrysler side as well,
see my Chrysler page, et seq.
(with the Walter P. Chrysler story).]
Cyclops fans; see
Cyclops on my Automotive page!
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
of this series of Mercedes-Benz pages.
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2003, 2004,
2005
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