 | | Carl Benz |
|---|
Mercedes-Benz traces its origins to Karl Benz's creation of the first petrol-powered
car, the Benz Patent Motorwagen, financed by Bertha Benz and
patented in January 1886, and Gottlieb Daimler and engineer Wilhelm
Maybach's conversion of a stagecoach by the addition of a petrol engine later that
year. The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft.
The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benz's
and Gottlieb Daimler's companies into the Daimler-Benz company.
Throughout the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz produced the 770
model, a car that was popular during Germany's Nazi period. Adolf Hitler was
known to have driven these cars during his time in power, with bulletproof
windshields. Most of the surviving models have been sold at auctions to private buyers.
 | | Gottlieb Daimler |
|---|
One of them is currently on display at the War
Museum in Ottawa, Ontario. Mercedes-Benz has
introduced many technological and safety innovations that later
became common in other vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is one of the best known and established
automotive brands in the world, and is also one of the world's oldest automotive brand
still in existence today in 2015, having produced the first petrol-powered
car.
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) (Daimler Motors Corporation)
was a German engine and later automobile manufacturer, in operation from 1890 until 1926. Founded by
Gottlieb
Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, it was based first in Cannstatt (today Bad Cannstatt, a city
district of Stuttgart). Daimler died in 1900, and their business moved in 1903
to Stuttgart-Untertürkheim after the original factory was destroyed by
fire, and again to Berlin in 1922. Other factories were located inMarienfelde (near
Berlin) and Sindelfingen (next to Stuttgart).
 | | DMG car (1906) with Phoenix engine |
|---|
The enterprise was begun to produce petrol engines but after the success of a small number of
race cars built on contract by Wilhelm Maybach for Emil Jellinek,
it began to produce the Mercedes model of 1902. After this automobile production
expanded to become DMG's main product, and it built several models. Because of the
post World War One German economic crisis, DMG merged in 1926 with Benz &
Cie., becoming Daimler-Benz and adopting Mercedes-Benz as its automobile trademark. A further merger
occurred in 1998 with Chrysler to become DaimlerChrysler. The name was finally
changed to just Daimler AG in 2007 when Chrysler was sold. | 
