The Story of Passion
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100 Years of Mercedes
Professor Jürgen Hubbert launched an unprecedented product offensive From the earliest beginnings, Mercedes-Benz vehicles have set standards - in technology and also in quality. Mercedes-Benz is the only brand in the world to offer a lifelong warranty ( mobilo-life ) on its vehicles. This technological trend-setter today offers 13 different car series comprising 122 different model versions, spread across virtually all segments. The breadth of the product mix is an important reason why last year, for the first time, Mercedes-Benz sold more than one million cars. And why the year-to-date figures up to the end of October 2000 already stand at 864,000 units. The foundation for this success across a wide range of segments was laid by Professor Jürgen Hubbert, responsible for the Mercedes-Benz/smart passenger car division. In the early 1990's, Hubbert launched an unprecedented product offensive which within the space of ten years had transformed Mercedes-Benz from a luxury-class specialist into an exclusive and extremely successful manufacturer of premium-quality cars catering for a wide spread of customer requirements. All of them, in their various segments, continue to encapsulate that essential ingredient which has always been at the heart of the brand: exclusiveness. With numerous new models due to be premiered in the coming months, the Mercedes brand is gearing up for a new round in its product offensive, highlights of which in the coming years will include such one-of-a-kind vehicles as the Mercedes-Benz Maybach ultra-luxury saloon and the Mercedes SLR super sports car. Mercedes-Benz pioneers new power source for a new age: the fuel cell From the very earliest times, Mercedes-Benz has symbolised the future of the automobile. To take just one current example: NECAR 5, the fuel-cell powered A-class whose launch in November was attended by the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, is a near-production prototype powered by the latest, most efficient and most compact fuel-cell drive technology. Mercedes-Benz has been demonstrating the feasibility of fuel cells in automotive applications ever since 1994 when it unveiled its first-generation fuel cell prototype NECAR 1 ( New Electric CAR ), based on an MB 100 van. The fuel cell system used in NECAR 1 weighed 800 kilograms, and took up virtually the whole of the load compartment. In the next three prototype generations, the technology was refined and the space requirements reduced. Now in a further prototype, NECAR 5, the entire fuel cell system has been located in the double-floor sandwich frame of the A-class - which means it does not restrict the interior space in any way. The first production car fitted with this alternative drive technology is due to go on the market in 2004. It will mark the dawn of a new era in automotive transportation which will put an end to the current reliance on fossil fuels.
The first Mercedes has so far been followed by a further 19 million cars In the same month, Jellinek placed an order worth 550,000 gold marks, for 36 vehicles. In today's terms, this would be equivalent to a figure not far short of £2,000,000, or a unit price of about £30,000. The order accounted for more than a third of DMG's total production for the year 1900. For the same money today, Emil Jellinek would get 36 Mercedes-Benz S 500's or more than 100 Mercedes-Benz C 200 Kompressor models. But today those 100 vehicles would be no more than one ten thousandth of total annual production. All told, the company has built 19 million Mercedes-Benz passenger cars since that first order 100 years ago. In 1900, when annual production of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was just 96 vehicles, built by a workforce of 344 people, such figures would have been unimaginable. The passenger car market was only just starting to take shape, with no proper road infrastructure in prospect. Higher production volumes would have been virtually impossible, since all vehicles at the time were hand-built. Statistically, it then took 3.6 employees one year to build one car. Today the figure is down to 0.1. 1902: the name Mercedes is registered as a trademark By 1902, the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft had doubled its production. And in September of the same year, the company took out a trademark on the name "Mercedes". 24 years later, Daimler merged with Benz & Cie. This union between the companies founded by the two inventors of the car, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, resulted in the formation of Daimler-Benz AG, while the Mercedes trademark now became Mercedes-Benz. Landmark models now followed thick and fast, like the incomparable SSK, the elegant and beautiful 540 K, the legendary 300 SL gull-wing model or the "tail-fin" models which took safety to new levels in the early nineteen sixties. All of them are technical milestones in a development path whose bottom line, today, has given us the safest and most comfortable cars in the world: the current S-class and its coupé version, the CL. Mercedes becomes the most successful commercial vehicle manufacturer in the world
Benz and Daimler design the first bus and the first truck The success story of the Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle began with two home-grown, path-breaking inventions: on March 18, 1895, the first "Benz Patent Motor Bus" went into scheduled service on the route from the town of Siegen, near Lake Constance, to the small villages of Netphen and Deuz. One year later, on October 1, 1896, the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft ( DMG ) enlarged the range of commercial vehicles available at that time when it delivered the world's first motorised truck, designed by Wilhelm Maybach, to the British Motor Syndicate Ltd in London. The first truck to bear the name Mercedes-Benz appeared in 1927, following the merger of the two companies. It was the Mercedes-Benz L 5, powered by a six-cylinder diesel engine.
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Stuttgart - For exactly
100 years, the name Mercedes has been synonymous with the most innovative
automotive brand in the world. Since the first Mercedes was supplied by the
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft ( DMG ) on December 22, 1900, a dynamic developed
which led in a direct line to the founding of the international automotive
concern, DaimlerChrysler AG, at the end of the 20th century. Mercedes
is today the world's most successful premium-quality automotive brand. The
technical prowess, the quality standards and the innovative capability of
this brand, and a whole cluster of automotive legends and masterpieces of
the calibre of the 300 SL gull-wing model are quite unique. The Mercedes
star has become the most famous automotive symbol and is also one of the
five best-known trademarks in the world. At present the brand has some 6.4
million customers, who own some 9.5 million Mercedes-Benz
products.
These are people who don't wish
to drive just any car but opt instead for the latest incarnations of the
Mercedes/Mercedes-Benz legend. This legend has been moulded and shaped by
a tradition of technological leadership which now spans 100 years. A long
list of innovations, whether diesel engines for automotive applications,
the safety body, the anti-lock braking system ( ABS ), airbag, the Electronic
Stability Program ( ESPÒ ), active suspension
( ABC ), Brake Assist ( BAS ), ceramic brakes ( C-BRAKE ) or Sensotronic
Brake Control ( SBC ), brings to mind just one name and one originator:
Mercedes-Benz.
But the
reputation of the Mercedes-Benz brand rests not just on its passenger cars
but also on its commercial vehicles. DaimlerChrysler AG is today the world's
largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles. The brands include Mercedes-Benz,
Freightliner ( number one in the USA ), Sterling, Thomas Built Buses, Setra,
Western Star, Orion, American LaFrance and, in the engines sector, MTU and
Detroit Diesel. Business is brisk, particularly for the Mercedes-Benz models,
whose sales in the first ten months of this year were up eight per cent:
by the end of October, 313,000 Mercedes-Benz trucks, buses and vans had been
sold. The current Mercedes-Benz truck range for Western Europe comprises
four cornerstones: the Actros, the Atego, the Econic and the Unimog implement
carrier. The Mercedes-Benz Vito, Sprinter and Vario vans are popular throughout
Europe. The brand also leads the way in the bus and coach sector, where the
current range comprises the Mercedes-Benz Cito, Citaro, Integro, Travego,
Tourismo and Medio models. Since November 20, 2000, the DaimlerChrysler
Commercial Vehicle division has been headed by Dr. Eckhard Cordes.
