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Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz set up Mercedes Benz in the 1880’s. It is said that these two men in fact had never met each other! They worked independently of each other with Daimler looking after the racing cars. A dealer from Austria called Emil Jellinek got the cars into races and was very successful. He named the cars Mercedes after his daughter.

Eventually Jellinek placed a large order from Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. They were in agreement that Jellnek could change some of the designs.  1886 Benz built his first motorized tricycle. The first production car was the Benz Velo in 1894 which competed in the first ever recorded car race, Rouen to Paris. It was in 1895 that Benz built his first truck.

It is quoted that Daimler never enjoyed driving! In March 1990 he died which left overall control of the company to Wilhelm Mayback. In November of that year they had produced a special car, the Mercedes which was lighter and smaller than the average car of the day and was able to reach top speeds of 55mph.

At the start of the First World War both factories had to turn to the production of war materials, although both of them reverted back to the production of cars after the war. However with fuel very scarce plus a 15% luxury tax car production was affected badly.

The economy in Germany grew more desperate and a new Mercedes Benz would cost 25 million marks. It is interesting to read that 15 million cars were registered throughout the world in 1923 and over 80% of these were from the UK and over half were in fact Fords. The Mercedes was thought to be too expensive.

In 1926 a new insignia was designed in the shape of a 3 pointed star wreathed with laurel to signify the merger of Benz and DMG.

In the 1930’s their biggest & most prestigious car was introduced, it was called the 770 Grosser and was powered by an 8 cylinder, 7.6 litre engine. The cars in this era produced many wins on the racing circuits.

In 1945 after the war, the plant at Unterturkheim which had been damaged had to put their car production on hold and instead produced trailers for bicycles.

However in 1946 the production of cars was resumed and by 1949 a diesel version of the 170 was being made which became a best seller.

Alongside all of these elegant car models a number of vans have been produced which are used a great deal for Mercedes van leasing. One such van is the Mercedes Sprinter which has the reputation for being highly reliable and fairly economical.

By the 1990’s Mercedes became the first manufacturer worldwide to fit a 4 valve diesel engine in a car. This new engine offers enhanced performance and smoothness which is what the Mercedes name stands for.

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