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10. Karl Benz Created The First Automobile
Way back in 1886, Karl Benz created what is widely regarded to be the first of the ground-based, internal combustion powered vehicles we enjoy today known as cars.
The Patent Motorwagen (so called because it was the first car to awarded a patent) was a three-wheeled vehicle that consisted of a steel tube frame, wooden panels and small gasoline-powered engine. With just 2/3 horsepower, it was less powerful than an actual horse, which was really the only other option at the time.
9. In 1936 Mercedes Benz made the first diesel-engine production passenger car
The Mercedes-Benz 260 D was one of the first two diesel engined series produced passenger cars, together with the diesel version of the Hanomag Rekord. Both were introduced at the Berlin Motor Show in February 1936. The 260 D was named in reference to its engine’s cubic capacity. Nearly 2,000 vehicles were assembled until 1940, after which the Daimler-Benz group had to devote itself almost entirely to military manufacture.
8. Mercedes Made Bicycles
By the 1920s, Daimler-Benz, as it was called at the time, found it wasn’t the only car company around anymore. Henry Ford’s Model T was making inroads into the German market, and that, combined with a slow economy following World War I, meant difficult times for the German car industry.
To stay afloat, Daimler experimented a bit od product diversification. A bicycle was sold under the Mercedes name in 1923. A typewriter was considered too, but never made it to production.
7. Adolph Hitlers Loved Benz
One more thing about those W25 racecars. Turns out, newly appointed German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party funded the entire program. One of his first acts was to fund both Mercedes and Auto Union (the company that would become Audi) as a display of German technological prowess.
The Furor was also fond of Mercedes road cars. His official transport was a Mercedes-Benz 770 with a bulletproof windshield. It was sort of the start of Mercedes being the unofficial car company of despots, dictators and royalty.
Note to car companies: Lebron James and Mathew Mcconaughey are much better celebrity endorsements than Adolph Hitler.
6. Mercedes Built a Self Driving Car Since 1980’s
Autonomous cars have been a big topic lately, but Mercedes-Benz started experimenting with them over 25-years-ago.
Thanks to some funding from the European Union, to the tune of €800 million, and a few years of development, Mercedes engineered an autonomous S-Class that drove itself from Munich, Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark and back in 1995. Along the way it hit speeds of up to 109 mph.
5. Mercedes and Swatch Watch Company Built a Car
Remember those Swatch watches that everyone had in the 1980s? Mercedes actually teamed up with that same company to build a car, and it’s probably one you’ve heard of; the Smart Car.
Swatch CEO Nicholas Hayek had the idea to build a car, and apply the funky styling and personalization features as Swatch watches. After approaching several other car companies, he entered into a deal with Mercedes in 1994. Now, Smart is wholly owned subsidiary of Mercedes.
9. Each Mercedes 500E was hand-built by Porsche and took a full 18 days to make.
The 500 E was created in close cooperation with Porsche; each 500 E was hand-built by Porsche, being transported back and forth between the Mercedes plant and Porsche’s Rossle-Bau plant in Zuffenhausen, Germany during assembly — taking a full 18 days to complete each model. Design began in 1989 and into 1991. Called ‘500 E’ through model year 1993, for model year 1994 it was face-lifted along with the rest of the range and renamed to ‘E 500′.
3. AMG Was a Basement Company
AMG is the high-performance tuning arm best known for turning stately Mercedes cars into snarling, tire-shredding, V8-powered beasts. It’s a fully owned Mercedes subsidiary now, but this wasn’t always the case.
Former Mercedes engineers Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher founded AMG in 1967 in Großaspach, Germany as a race engine company in Aufrecht’s basement, and went to work making Mercedes as fast as the BMWs and Porsches of the time. AMG was eventually acquired by Mercedes in 1999, and is now responsible for building engines for the company’s Formula 1 cars.
The famous AMG tuned Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3, nicknamed “The Red Pig” (pictured above), was AMGs first big success, and is easily one of the most badass racecars ever to take to the track.
2. Mercedes Benz has a Self Driving Truck
Note the guy in the picture above playing candy crush on his iPad. He’s not being unsafe. He’s behind the wheel of the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 — an autonomous tractor-trailer that’s probably smarter than many truckers out there.
Using lessons that started with the autonomous car from 1995, Mercedes has now brought the same technology to trucking. The Future Truck is smart enough to detect when a police vehicle is approaching from the rear and will move to the side to make way. The road is hard for truckers, but soon it will be a lot easier.
1. Mercedes Benz Won 2014 Formula 1 With this trick
Formula 1 engineers get paid loads of money to be very, very clever. Every year there seems to be one team that figures out competitive edge while staying within the rules, and this year, that team is Mercedes.
By splitting the two elements of the turbocharger — putting one in front of the engine and the other behind — the Mercedes-AMG F1 engineers have unlocked a huge amount of potential. Mercedes F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have won 14 of the 17 races run thus far, and the team has already clinched the manufacturers championship.
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