Mercedes-Benz Trivia
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49 free Mercedes-Benz trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Mercedes-Benz can claim the first automobile, the first long-distance road trip, the first production airbag and the most expensive car ever sold, so there is no shortage of material. This quiz covers the whole story: Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, Emil Jellinek's daughter Mercédès, the meaning of the three-pointed star, the Silver Arrows and Fangio, the Gullwing, the S-Class safety firsts, the Shah of Iran's G-Wagen, AMG's hand-built engines and the modern Formula One dynasty. The opening questions are easy for anyone who follows cars; the later ones dig into plant locations, production numbers, corporate name changes and the odd nickname of an AMG racing saloon. Every answer was verified against Wikipedia's articles on the company, its models and its people, so you can trust the dates and figures. Ideal for petrolheads, quiz nights and anyone who has ever wondered why the star has three points.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Mercedes name comes from the daughter of which Austrian businessman, who ordered the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp?
Emil Jellinek
Emil Jellinek, an Austrian dealer and racer based in Nice, entered races under his daughter's name, and 'Mercedes' was registered as a trademark in 1902.
Q 02How old was Mercédès Jellinek when her father agreed in 1900 to name cars after her?
10
10: Mercédès was born on 16 September 1889, and the agreement with DMG to sell Jellinek's cars under her name was signed on 2 April 1900.
Q 03Which three-wheeled 1886 vehicle is widely regarded as the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine?
Benz Patent-Motorwagen
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen was Karl Benz's three-wheeler, financed in part by his wife Bertha's dowry.
Q 04In what year did the companies of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler merge to form Daimler-Benz?
1926
1926: Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie. merged on 28 June 1926 to form Daimler-Benz AG, and the first cars badged Mercedes-Benz appeared that same year.
Q 05In which German city is Mercedes-Benz headquartered?
Stuttgart
Stuttgart: the headquarters in the Untertürkheim district sit beside the Mercedes-Benz Museum and the Untertürkheim engine and powertrain plant.
Q 06Which slogan, quoting Gottlieb Daimler, did Mercedes-Benz adopt in 2010?
The Best or Nothing
'The Best or Nothing' is the Mercedes line; 'Vorsprung durch Technik' belongs to Audi and 'The Ultimate Driving Machine' to BMW.
Q 07Gottlieb Daimler's sons Paul and Adolf suggested the three-pointed star to symbolise engines for land, water and what?
Air
Air completed the trio; DMG formally adopted the star in June 1909, nine years after Daimler's death in March 1900.
Q 08Roughly how far was Bertha Benz's 1888 one-way drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim, following wagon tracks with her two sons?
106 km
106 km (66 miles), with her sons Richard and Eugen, aged 13 and 15, and without telling her husband.
Q 09Where did Bertha Benz buy fuel on her 1888 drive, effectively creating the world's first filling station?
A city pharmacy
A city pharmacy: the car had no real fuel tank, so she bought the petroleum solvent ligroin at the Stadt-Apotheke (town pharmacy) in Wiesloch, celebrated since as the first filling station.
Q 10What did Bertha Benz use to clear a blocked fuel line during her 1888 drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim?
A hat pin
A hat pin cleared the line, and her garter served as insulation; a cobbler fitted leather to the failing brakes, inventing brake linings.
Q 11Wilhelm Maybach co-founded DMG, maker of the Mercedes 35 hp, with Daimler in which year?
1890
1890: Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was founded in Cannstatt on 28 November 1890 to build small, high-speed engines, with Maybach as its chief designer.
Q 12The 300 SL sports car of 1954 is famous for what unusual feature?
Gullwing doors
Gullwing doors: the tubular space frame ran high along the sills, making conventional doors impossible, so the doors hinged at the roof and opened upward like wings.
Q 13The 300 SL was unusually launched at which motor show in February 1954?
New York
New York: it debuted at the International Motor Sports Show there in February 1954, an unusual choice that reflected the American market the road car had been built for.
Q 21Which royal figure suggested the vehicle that became the G-Class?
The Shah of Iran
Development began in 1972 with Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Graz, Austria; civilians could buy one from 1979.
Q 22In which Austrian city did G-Class production begin in 1979?
Graz
Graz: Steyr-Daimler-Puch, later Magna Steyr, began building the Geländewagen, or off-road vehicle, there in 1979.
Q 23In 1980 the Vatican took delivery of a G-Wagen with a clear thermoplastic top to serve as what?
The Popemobile
The Popemobile: a white 230 G with a transparent roof carried John Paul II on his November 1980 visit to Germany, and Mercedes-Benz supplied papal vehicles many times afterwards.
Q 14How many 300 SL coupés were built between 1954 and 1957?
1,400
1,400 coupés were built from 1954 to 1957, 29 of them with aluminium bodies, before the roadster version took over from 1957 to 1963.
Q 15What record price did a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR coupé fetch in 2022?
€135 million
€135 million: one of the two 300 SLR coupés was sold by RM Sotheby's at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in May 2022, the highest price then paid for any car, to fund a scholarship programme.
Q 16Where was the first Mercedes-Benz factory outside Germany built, in 1951?
Argentina
Argentina: Mercedes-Benz Argentina was founded in 1951, and its plant at San Martín near Buenos Aires began building trucks and buses in 1952, the company's first production outside Germany.
Q 17What was the first vehicle built at Mercedes-Benz's Alabama plant near Tuscaloosa in February 1997?
An ML320 SUV
An ML320 SUV rolled off the line in February 1997; the plant at Vance, near Tuscaloosa, was purpose-built for the M-Class and later added the GLE, GLS and electric EQ SUVs.
Q 18The 'S' in S-Class stands for which German word?
Sonderklasse
Sonderklasse, 'special class': the W116 of 1972 was the first line officially to carry the S-Class name, though the label had been used informally on earlier top models.
Q 19In December 1980, which S-Class generation became the first production car with a driver-side airbag?
W126
The W126 also brought seat-belt pretensioners.
Q 20Which safety system did Mercedes-Benz offer on the W116 S-Class in 1978, among the first cars to have it?
Anti-lock brakes
ESP followed in 1995 and PRE-SAFE in 2002.
Q 24What do the letters AMG stand for?
Aufrecht, Melcher, Großaspach
Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher founded it in 1967; Großaspach was Aufrecht's birthplace.
Q 25Mercedes-AMG has its headquarters in which small German town?
Affalterbach
Affalterbach, near Stuttgart: AMG moved there in 1976, and its engines are assembled by hand under a 'one man, one engine' philosophy.
Q 26What was the affectionate nickname of the AMG 300 SEL 6.3 V8 saloon that raced at the 1971 Spa 24 Hours?
The Red Sow
The Red Sow (Rote Sau): the AMG-built 300 SEL, bored out to 6.8 litres, finished second overall and won its class at Spa in 1971, putting AMG on the map.
Q 27What name was given to the dominant Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Grand Prix cars of 1934-39?
Silver Arrows
Silver Arrows (Silberpfeile): legend says white paint was scraped off a Mercedes W25 before the 1934 Eifelrennen to save weight, exposing bare aluminium, and the name stuck to both teams' cars.
Q 28Per Alfred Neubauer's story, how much did the W25 weigh on the scales at the 1934 Eifelrennen?
751 kg
751 kg: in Neubauer's telling the car was one kilogram over the 750 kg limit, so the white paint was sanded off overnight. The tale surfaced only in his 1958 memoir and historians doubt it.
Q 29Which driver won the 1954 and 1955 Formula One drivers' championships for the Mercedes-Benz works team?
Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio took both titles driving the W196, the second with Stirling Moss as team-mate; Mercedes withdrew from all motorsport at the end of 1955 after the Le Mans disaster.
Q 30Mercedes returned to F1 as a works team in 2010 by buying into which outfit?
Brawn GP
Brawn GP, the 2009 double champion, was bought by Daimler and Aabar in November 2009 and became Mercedes GP, hiring Nico Rosberg and a returning Michael Schumacher.