50 Fun Facts About Mercedes-Benz

The Mercedes name comes from the daughter of which Austrian businessman, who ordered the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp?

He raced under his daughter's name and registered it as a trademark in 1902.

How old was Mercédès Jellinek when her father began painting her name on the cars he raced?

'Mercedes' is Spanish for 'godsend', which suited a father betting his fortune on motor racing.

Which 1886 vehicle is widely regarded as the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine?

Karl Benz's three-wheeler was financed in part by his wife Bertha's dowry.

In what year did the companies of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler merge to form Daimler-Benz?

The first cars badged Mercedes-Benz rolled out that same year.

In which German city is Mercedes-Benz headquartered?

The complex there also houses the Mercedes-Benz Museum and an assembly plant.

What is the Mercedes-Benz brand slogan?

Two of the other slogans belong to Audi and BMW.

Daimler's three-pointed star was suggested by Gottlieb's sons to symbolise engines for land, water and what?

DMG formally adopted the symbol in June 1909, nine years after Daimler's death.

Roughly how far was Bertha Benz's 1888 one-way drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim?

She took her sons Richard and Eugen, aged 13 and 15, without telling her husband.

Where did Bertha Benz buy fuel on her 1888 drive, effectively creating the world's first filling station?

The car had no fuel tank, so she needed the petroleum solvent ligroin from the Stadt-Apotheke in Wiesloch.

What did Bertha Benz use to clear a blocked fuel line during her 1888 journey?

She also used her garter as insulation and had a cobbler fit leather to the failing brakes, inventing brake linings.

Wilhelm Maybach co-founded DMG, maker of the Mercedes 35 hp, with Daimler in which year?

Their aim was to build small, high-speed engines; the first factory stood in Cannstatt.

The 300 SL sports car of 1954 is famous for what unusual feature?

Its lightweight tubular frame made conventional doors impossible, so they hinged at the roof.

The 300 SL was unusually launched at which motor show in February 1954?

US importer Max Hoffman had pushed for a road car after seeing demand for a high-performance Mercedes.

How many 300 SL coupés were built between 1954 and 1957?

A roadster version followed from 1957 to 1963.

What record price did a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR coupé fetch in 2022?

The sale made it by far the most expensive car ever sold.

Where was the first Mercedes-Benz factory outside Germany built, in 1951?

Australian assembly followed at Port Melbourne from 1959.

The company's US plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama produced its first vehicle in February 1997. What was it?

The state donated 1,000 acres; the plant now builds the GLE, GLS and electric EQ SUVs.

The 'S' in S-Class stands for which German word?

It means 'special class', and the W116 of 1972 was the first line officially to carry the name.

In December 1980, which S-Class generation became the first production car with a driver-side airbag?

The W126 also brought seat-belt pretensioners.

Which safety system did Mercedes-Benz offer on the W116 S-Class in 1978, among the first cars to have it?

ESP followed in 1995 and PRE-SAFE in 2002.

Which royal figure suggested the vehicle that became the G-Class?

Development began in 1972 with Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Graz, Austria; civilians could buy one from 1979.

In which Austrian city has the G-Class been built since 1979?

The G in the name is short for Geländewagen, or off-road vehicle.

In 1980 the Vatican took delivery of a G-Wagen with a clear thermoplastic top to serve as what?

Mercedes-Benz has supplied the pontiff's vehicles many times since.

What do the letters AMG stand for?

Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher founded it in 1967; Großaspach was Aufrecht's birthplace.

Mercedes-AMG has its headquarters in which small German town?

Most AMG engines are still hand-built under a 'one man, one engine' philosophy.

What was the affectionate nickname of the AMG 300 SEL 6.3 V8 saloon that raced at the 1971 Spa 24 Hours?

The oversized saloon finished second overall and put AMG on the map.

What name was given to the dominant Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Grand Prix cars of 1934-39?

Legend says the white paint was scraped off a W25 to make the 750 kg weight limit, exposing bare aluminium.

Per Alfred Neubauer's story, how much did the W25 weigh on the scales at the 1934 Eifelrennen?

The tale did not surface until 1958 and historians doubt it, but it is too good to let go.

Which driver won the 1954 and 1955 Formula One drivers' championships for the Mercedes-Benz works team?

The team withdrew from all motorsport at the end of 1955 after the Le Mans disaster.

Mercedes returned to F1 as a works team in 2010 by buying into which championship-winning outfit?

The team then hired Nico Rosberg and a returning Michael Schumacher.

How many consecutive Formula One constructors' championships did Mercedes win from 2014 onward?

Drivers' titles went to Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg every year from 2014 to 2020.

The Mercedes Formula One team is based in which English town?

Its engines come from nearby Brixworth, at the plant formerly known as Ilmor.

Lewis Hamilton joined Mercedes for the 2013 season from which team?

The move was announced on 28 September 2012 and looked risky at the time.

The name Unimog is an abbreviation of which German phrase?

It was designed just after the Second World War as a self-propelled agricultural machine.

Daimler-Benz took over Unimog production in 1951 at which plant?

Since 2002 the vehicle has been built at the truck plant in Wörth.

In 1998 Daimler-Benz merged with which American carmaker?

The marriage lasted less than a decade; Cerberus bought Chrysler in 2007 for $6 billion.

On 1 February 2022, Daimler AG changed its registered name to what?

The heavy-truck business had been spun off as a separate listed company a few months earlier.

Which Chinese businessman became the company's largest shareholder with a 9.69% stake in 2018?

He is the founder of Geely, which also owns Volvo Cars.

Who became chairman of the Mercedes-Benz Group and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars on 22 May 2019?

He is the first non-German to run the company.

Mercedes-Benz became the top premium car brand in 2018 with roughly how many passenger-car sales?

BMW and Audi were the rivals it edged past.

The 2009 S400 BlueHYBRID was the first production hybrid car in the world to use what?

Mercedes had shown seven hybrid concepts at the 2007 Frankfurt show.

Which US carmaker partnered with Mercedes-Benz in 1958 to sell its cars in America?

The arrangement gave Mercedes a dealer network before it set up its own US operation.

Since what year has Mercedes-Benz (originally Karl Benz) been producing buses in Mannheim?

The bus and coach brands have sat under EvoBus since 1995 and now belong to Daimler Truck.

The armoured 600 Pullman Guard limousines have chiefly been used by which group of customers?

The original 600 was the company's flagship before the S-Class took over.

Gottlieb Daimler was born in 1834 in which town?

He met Wilhelm Maybach at a Reutlingen machine-tool factory in 1865, a partnership that produced the first Mercedes.

Which US importer suggested at a 1953 directors' meeting that Mercedes build a road-going sports car for America?

The result was the 300 SL, launched at the New York show in 1954 and initially distributed only by Hoffman.

Which Mercedes head engineer designed the 300 SL's chrome-molybdenum tubular space frame?

Thin tubes assembled into triangles gave high rigidity at low mass, but the high sills forced the famous gullwing doors.

How many 300 SL roadsters had been built when production ended in February 1963?

It was the last Mercedes-Benz car built on a separate frame; a hardtop option proved popular despite costing 1,500 Deutschmarks.

What did Bertha Benz use as insulation material during her pioneering 1888 drive?

She also had a cobbler fit leather to the failing wooden brakes, creating the world's first brake linings.

How old were Bertha Benz's sons Richard and Eugen when they rode with her from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888?

The 39-year-old set off at dawn without telling her husband or getting permission from the authorities.