The history of Daimler-Benz
Gottlieb Daimler
Scientific curiosity and the roughness
were the driving forces in Gottlieb Daimler's career. Born the son of a
master baker on 17th March 1834 in Schorndorf, he served an apprenticeship
to a gunsmith, then expanded his horizons firstly in the locomotive industry,
then at the Stuttgart Polytechnic. He subsequently worked for various engineering
firms in France and England. In 1865, Daimler was entrusted, as Technical
Manager, with reorganising the engineering works of the Reutlingen Brotherhood.
Here he became acquainted with the outstandingly talented young draughtsman
and engineer, Wilhelm Maybach.This fateful meeting marked a turning point
in the lives of both men.When Daimler joined the Maschinenbaugesellschaft
Karlsruhe in 1869 as "Chairman of all Workshops", he arranged the very
same year for Maybach to be taken on. Henceforth, Daimler and Maybach formed
an inseparable team. In 1872, Gottlieb Daimler became Technical Director of the Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz
AG, founded shortly before by Nikolaus Otto and Eugen Langen. Maybach moved
with him and became head of the design office. During this period, Otto
developed his four-stroke engine and it was clear to Daimler that this
smaller and lighter engine would prove superior to the large and unwieldy
gas engines of the times.
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Karl Benz
Karl Benz was born on 25th November
1844 in Karlsruhe, the son of an engine driver.The middle of the last century,
when Benz was an apprentice, was a time of widespread fascination with
the"new technology". The first railway line in Germany from Nuremberg to
Furth had been opened in 1835, only twenty years before, and in the space
of just a few decades the railways, steamships and new production processes
had ushered in a new era in technology, industry and everyday life. Karl
Benz attended the Karlsruhe grammar school and subsequently the Karlsruhe
Polytechnic. Between 1864 and 1870, he worked for a number of different
firms as a draughtsman, designer and works manager before founding
his first firm in 1871 in Mannheim, with August Ritter. But little money
was to be made in the building materials trade and the economic convulsions
of the 1870's caused difficulties for the young company. Karl Benz now
turned to the two-stroke engine, in the hope of finding a new livelihood.
After two years' work, his first engine finally sprang to life on NewYear's
Eve, 1879. He took out various patents on this machine.
Equally important were the contacts with new business associates, with
whose assistance Benz founded a gas engine factory in Mannheim. But after
only a short time he withdrew from this company since it did not give him
a free enough hand for his technical experiments. Benz found two new partners
and with them founded "Benz & Co., Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik" in
1883 in Mannheim, a general partnership. Business was good and soon the
production of industrial engines was being stepped up with this new financial
security, Karl Benz could now set about designing a "motor carriage", with an engine based on the Otto fourstroke cycle.
Unlike Daimler, who installed his engine in an ordinary carriage, Benz
designed not only his engine, but the whole vehicle as well. On 29th January
1886, he was granted a patent on it and on 3rd July 1886, he introduced
the first automobile in the world to an astonished public. In 1903, Karl
Benz retired from active participation in his company. The next year however,
he joined the supervisory board of Benz & Cie and he was a member of
the supervisory board of Daimler-Benz AG from 1926, when the company was
formed, until his death in 1929. In 1872, Karl Benz married Bertha Ringer,
who was to be of major support to him in his work. The couple produced
five children. Benz lived to witness the motoring boom and the definitive
penetration of his idea in to everyday life. He died on 4th April 1929.
The former Benz family residence in Ladenburg is now open to the public.The
Daimler-Benz foundation, founded in 1986, has its registered office here. |
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Wilhelm Maybach
In 1882, Daimler made himself independent,
setting up his first workshop in Cannstatt, today part of Stuttgart.Then
he arranged for Wilhelm Maybach to join him from Deutz. Henceforth, Daimler
devoted his attention to the four-stroke engine, which had to be made still
smaller, lighter and more efficient to increase its field of application
and its suitability for mobile use. By 1883, he had taken out Patent No.
28 022 on the first small, light, high-speed combustion engine. Daimler
was so successful in improving the engine that in 1885 it was installed
for the first time in a"riding car" (the first motorcycle), one year later
in a boat and finally, in 1886, in a carriage.
In 1890, the Daimler-Motoren Gesellschaft was founded in Cannstatt.With
new,wealthy partners, engine building could now be pursued on a larger
scale. By the time Gottlieb Daimler died, on the 6th of March 1900, he had already
lived to see his engines prove themselves in practice.
The Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was flourishing. Gottlieb Daimler married
twice. By his first wife Emma, who died in 1889, he had five children.
He married his second wife, Lina, in 1893. This union produced two further
children. The Daimler house in Taubenheimstrasse, Cannstatt, was destroyed
in the Second World War and the site is now part of the Kurpark.The garden
shed in which Daimler and Maybach developed the high-speed engine survived
and is today a museum. |
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Mercedes Jellinek
On 16th September 1889, a third child was born to businessman Emil Jellinek in Vienna. Rachel and Emil
Jellinek gave their daughter a Spanish Christian name which means"grace"and
later became world-famous: Mercedes. Emil Jellinek moved his operations
to Nice, taking his family with him. As Mercedes grew up, her father developed
a passionate interest in automobiles,then in their infancy, and it was
not long before the Daimler-Motoren Gesellschaft caught his attention.
In 1893, Emil Jellinek travelled to Cannstatt and made the acquaintance
of Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. In the years which followed he
bought a number of Daimler vehicles. In 1898,Jellinek ordered a Daimler
Phoenix, requesting it to be delivered with a four-cylinder engine. He
then drove the car in the Tour de Nice.
Since it was chic at the time to enter automobile competitions under
a pseudonym, Jellinek appeared in the competitors' lists under the name
Mercedes. Emil Jellinek, alias "Monsieur Mercedes",first won the Tour de
Nice on 21st March 1899, when his daughter was just nine and a half years
old.
In 1900, the Daimler-Motoren Gesellschaft again improved on the design,
by enlarging the wheelbase, lowering the centre of gravity and increasing
engine power. Emil Jellinek was so taken with this design that he put in
an order for thirty-six cars, worth 550,000 gold marks. He made his order
subject to two conditions: firstly he must be made sole agent in Austria-Hungary,
France and America. Secondly, the vehicles must be named after his daughter,
Mercedes. The name caught on so well that soon the Daimler-Motoren Gesellschaft
used it for all its cars and in 1902, a trademark was taken out. The "Mercedes" era had begun. |
The History of the three pointed Star
1909. Daimler's star. The suggestion to use the star as a trademark came
from Gottlieb Daimler's sons.
Their father had once sent his wife a postcard with a star marking out
the house where he was living in Deutz.
"One day this star will shine down on my work", he said.In 1909 a trademark
was taken out on the star.
Its three points symbolizes the three branches of motorisation: on land,
on water and in the air.
"It all started with two different ideas from two
different men with two different cars. Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz each
created their own companies, manufacturing their own cars. Their companies
produced brilliant automobiles as rivals for about 30 years, until economic
ties caused their two respectful companies to merge and create what today
is the greatest automobile in the world. The history of the Daimler-Benz
group began in October 1883, when Karl Benz, Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm
Esslinger founded Benz & Co. (which became Benz & Cie. in 1899)
Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik OHG in Mannheim. The first motor cars took
to the road in 1886: the Benz patent motor car made its first public trip
through the streets of Mannheim in July of that year and around the same
time, although the two inventors were working quite separately, Gottlieb
Daimler carried out trials with his first motor carriage. In 1890, Daimler
founded the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) in Bad Cannstatt, near Stuttgart.
America's first fully functional vehicle engine, built in Hartford, Connecticut,
was designed on the basis of plans produced by Daimler. After the war,
both companies were affected by the world economic crisis; it became necessary
to diversify and in addition to motor vehicles, typewriters were produced
in Untertürkheim and bicycles in Marienfelde. The troubled economic
climate and the large number of vehicle manufacturers contending for a
share of the market forced companies to form alliances. In 1924 the Daimler
and Benz companies formed an association of common interest, marketing
their cars under the tradename Mercedes-Benz."
List Of History Links
History of the Early Benz
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"The Mercedes advertisement, from 1888 or
1889, could well be the world's first for a motorvehicle. It extols the virtues of the Benz three-wheeler,invented in 1885. Due to its perfect integration ofengine and chassis, it is considered by many to
be the world's first true automobile. Only a fewcars were made during this period; volume productionwas still years in the future." Click on the patent to seeit in in full detail. |
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