Mercedes-Benz: World's First Car Success Story

Have you ever wondered how one of the most luxurious and iconic car brands, Mercedes-Benz, came to be? Today, Mercedes-Benz is known for its sleek designs, powerful performance, and impressive status. But behind its success lies a fascinating story of ambition, innovation, and overcoming adversity. In this article, we’ll take you through the incredible journey of Mercedes-Benz, from its humble beginnings to its position as a global automotive powerhouse. Let’s dive into the history of Carl Benz and the creation of the first automobile.

The Rise of Mercedes-Benz: From Humble Beginnings to Global Icon

Mercedes-Benz is one of the world’s oldest and most luxurious car companies, worth around $80 billion. But being among the most desired and expensive cars today, it’s easy to forget its early humble beginnings. It all started with a poor engineer who faced many doubts and failures in his pursuit of building the first Horseless Carriage. Despite his challenges, he proved everyone wrong and turned his small venture into the world’s first and biggest production car company during the late 19th century. But what started as an inspiring success story took a surprisingly dark turn when the company profited from supplying military vehicles to the Nazis under the work of forced labourers.

The Humble Beginnings of Carl Benz

Carl Benz was born in November 1844 in the German town of Mühlburg. He was born into a low-class household. His father was a locomotive driver who barely managed to sustain his family enough to get by. However, when Carl turned two years old, his father passed away, leaving him and his mother in dire financial straits. Benz’s childhood wasn’t easy, but despite living in poverty and going to bed with an empty stomach, his mother did everything she could to ensure her son had a good education.

Early Struggles and Breakthroughs

Carl could attend school thanks to her and showed signs of brilliance at a very young age, most notably in chemistry and mechanics. By the time he was 15, Carl decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and pass the entrance exam for mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, where he met a teacher who would eventually play a big role in his life. Ferdinand Redtenbacher.

Redtenbacher is regarded as the central figure who transformed mechanical engineering from a workshop-based profession into a technical science in Germany and was a massive believer that steam engines, mainly used for railways and boats at the time, were quickly becoming a thing of the past. Under his teaching, Benz’s interest in Horseless carriages started to take off, and being a regular bicycle rider himself, he began tinkering around with his bike, experimenting with possible ways he could create a motorized vehicle.

The Creation of the Horseless Carriage

By then, many engineers and inventors had already attempted to create the first automobile. While a few of them did manage to build self-propelled vehicles, these early inventions still needed to be fully practical. Carl noticed that most early cars were based on steam engine technology. Under the guidance of Professor Redtenbacher, he soon realized the need for a different concept.

While many people initially laughed at his vision, he always believed it was possible; he just needed more time to prove it. Thus, after graduating from Karlsruhe at 19, Benz spent the next seven years working several engineering and construction jobs. While he struggled to fit in with any of them, he used everything he learned to kickstart his venture in 1871.

Building a Business: Success and Setbacks

At age 27, Carl partnered with a mechanic named August Ritter, and they began operating an iron foundry and mechanical workshop in Mannheim. At that same time, Benz kept working on his side project, trying to develop a motorized carriage. So, having a partner to help him run the business seemed essential. Unfortunately for Carl, his business partner turned out to be unreliable, and after local authorities impounded their tools, the company struggled immensely during its first year.

Bertha Benz: The Unsung Heroine

Luckily, Carl had also met a woman around that time, Bertha Ringer, who would become his wife a few years later. Born into a wealthy family, Bertha was a woman of strong values and couldn’t stand to see her fiance’s efforts wasted by his business partner. So, she decided to use her dowry to buy out Ritter’s entire share of the company, placing her and Carl in complete control of the business.

Together, they were able to turn the situation around and keep the business afloat for the next ten years. Despite all the struggles, it was during this period that Carl could show his true genius, making significant developments and breakthroughs in his side experiments, most notably developing a gasoline two-stroke engine in 1879. To earn more revenue, he also began to patent his inventions, such as his engine speed regulation system, ignition via a battery system, spark plug, carburettor, clutch, gearshift, and water radiator.

With these designs, Carl was not only getting closer to achieving his dream of a Horseless Carriage but also allowing him to add more products that he could sell from his business. However, the company wasn’t going as well as he had hoped.

You read that the production costs from Carl’s venture had risen so much that the banks demanded that it be incorporated. This forced him to associate with other investors and eventually turn his business into a joint-stock company in 1882. Ultimately, Carl was left with only 5% of his company’s shares and thus was downgraded from his position. To make matters worse, his ideas were no longer considered when the company designed new products. He had no say whatsoever in the company anymore.

Frustrated and hurt by this arrangement, Carl packed up his things and left the corporation the following year.

Leaving his company was hard for Carl, but the disappointment made him even more determined to succeed. His longtime passion for bicycles led to Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm, two men who owned a repair shop in Mannheim. Together, they established Benz and Cie and focused on manufacturing industrial machines and stationary gas engines.

Unlike Carl’s previous venture, this one started well and became profitable quickly. With steady income pouring in and a staff of 25 people, Benz finally directed his main focus toward his lifelong dream: building an automobile.

The First Automobile and Public Reception

Carl built the carriage around the motor using his gas engine instead of simply adding a motor to a carriage. Using technology similar to a bicycle, he constructed what many considered the first actual automobile in 1885: the Benz Patent-Motorwagen.

This two-seater vehicle ran on three wire wheels, forming a tricycle, and was powered by a gasoline four-stroke motor. Its one-cylinder engine produced 2/3 horsepower and could go around seven mph. Benz knew this was revolutionary, and after testing and refining his vehicle, he drove his wonder car out to the public in the summer of 1886.

However, he received mixed reviews from critics. While some admired his creation, most people were sceptical about the machine, and many didn’t want him to drive around on the main streets for fear that the vehicle might explode. Others were even convinced that Benz was the devil driving an infernal carriage!

Carl’s business partners weren’t too happy about it either. His obsession with the automobile kept him away from his work, and they couldn’t see how his invention could be helpful. “Why would anyone buy such a machine?” they argued. “It’s no quicker than a horse; it can break down easily and run out of fuel.”

Nevertheless, Carl Benz was convinced that his Horseless Carriage was the future and began manufacturing cars for sale in 1888, the first person in the world to do so. His biggest supporter was his wife, who often stayed with her husband in the workshop, offering him new suggestions.

However, even after improvements were made, people still couldn’t see Carl’s vision. On the other hand, the few people who bought the cars could only use them to cover short distances; even with that, they needed mechanics to always be with them. It also didn’t help that they were expensive, leaving them only accessible to the rich and elite. And even many members of the so-called elite didn’t fancy them because they were so loud and messy. With that being said, one thing was clear: Carl needed to convince the world that the automobile was here to Stay.

Bertha Benz’s Historic Journey
One morning in the summer of 1888, Bertha Benz got up very early while Carl was still in bed and hopped into her husband’s car to embark on one of the most critical journeys in automobile history. She brought along her two sons and set out to visit her mother in Pforzheim, which was 66 miles away from Mannheim.

Bertha didn’t inform her husband or the police about her plans, most likely because they wouldn’t let her go if they knew. At the time, no car or motorized carriage had ever attempted a long journey. However, she was determined to prove the importance of Benz’s invention.

However, her trip was no walk in the park. Bertha encountered many problems along the way, like crossing dusty and stony roads made for horses, stopping by a pharmacy to get more gas, and even performing a few mechanical repairs. The 66-mile trip took Bertha and her two sons over 12 hours, but they eventually made it safely to Pforzheim.

More than anything, the trip achieved Bertha’s goal of making people notice that the automobile was the next big thing. As a result, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen became the talk of the town and received significant publicity for Carl’s business.

The success of Benz and Cie

Soon enough, Benz and Cie began to expand quickly, so much so that by 1890, it had become the second-largest engine. Sources and related content manufacturers in Germany, though not by selling their cars but their stationary gasoline engines. However, with the addition of two new business partners, Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Ganß, they would soon help to turn this around. As they took care of the business and marketing side of things, Benz could focus more on his engineering goals and was able to patent several new car innovations, such as the planetary gear transmission, the double pivot steering, and the flat engine with a boxer configuration.

He also designed and manufactured a new and improved automobile at the recommendation of his business partners, which hit the market in 1893. He called it the Benz Victoria. This was a more luxurious two-passenger vehicle with a three-horsepower engine capable of reaching 11 mph. The car sold well due to its reliability, but its follow-up design, the cheaper Benz Velo, took off. With a total production sum of about 1,200 units, the Benz Velo became the world’s first large-scale production car in history, making Benz and Cie the largest automobile company in the world during the 1890s and early 1900s.

Rivalry with Daimler

However, while the Benz company was enjoying its newfound success, it was also feeling much pressure from another company stationed not too far away: Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft.

Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was headed by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Both were brilliant engineers, but Gottlieb Daimler, in particular, was known for being very competitive and had a lot of connections and knowledge of how to run a business, which Carl Benz seemed to lack.

The first Daimler car to be sold commercially appeared in 1892. Two years later, they followed up with a two-cylinder vehicle, and in 1897, they introduced their first front-engine model, the Daimler Phoenix. Daimler was catching up with Benz as its vehicles looked more appealing and comfortable to the public.

The Birth of Mercedes-Benz

Unfortunately, Mr. Daimler passed away in 1900, leaving Maybach in charge of the company. But it was under Maybach’s control that he designed his crowning achievement, the Mercedes 35 hp, in 1901. This vehicle is unique because it was the first automobile to resemble our modern idea of a car. It was equipped with a powerful gas engine, the body was more comprehensive and prominent with a tailored steel chassis, and its centre of mass was near the ground.

Initially built for racing, this vehicle was made at the request of a wealthy businessman, Emil Jellinek, who named the car after his daughter, Mercedes. This car would win multiple street races and hill climb events, going at a top speed of 56 mph, superior to any other vehicle of its day.

This drew much attention to the Daimler company, which decided to rebrand all its vehicles to Mercedes and began producing new models for racing and public use under the same name. On the flip side, however, this latest trend didn’t sit well with Carl Benz’s partners, who wanted an immediate response to counter their competition.

They hired French designers without Carl’s approval to help with a new, faster model. Benz was angry and upset with their decision. He never liked the idea of auto racing and always preferred to drive slowly and carefully. He was horrified by the noise and danger of someone driving at high speeds on public roads.

The car built by his team was also not a success, which became damaging for the Benz company, which suffered further crises between 1903 and 1904. Angry and disappointed, Carl left his company while remaining on its board of directors. Ultimately, he agreed to allow his cars to race, and these racing successes eventually rescued his company.

By 1908, Benz had a 120 horsepower racer, a monster that roared from Leningrad to Moscow in 8 and a half hours with an average speed of 50 mph, which was an incredible feat considering how primitive the tracks were at the time. However, the 200-horsepower Blitzen Benz would ultimately put the brand in the spotlight. Built in 1909, this race car would break the absolute speed record of any plane, train, or automobile of that time, reaching speeds of over 140 mph in 1911.

This placed Benz alongside Daimler as one of the most desired cars at the time, and both companies enjoyed good sales in the years to follow. However, this success was short-lived as the First World War broke out, shaking up everybody’s lives and the global economy.

World War I and Post-War Struggles

Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the country went through an economic recession, and both companies, Daimler and Benz, struggled immensely. To strengthen their possibilities of survival, the two companies put their rivalry aside. They signed an agreement in 1924 in which they agreed to combine their production and marketing efforts while still retaining their names to save costs.

However, this agreement only lasted for two short years. As the German economy worsened, the two companies were forced to merge entirely in 1926, creating a new enterprise called Daimler-Benz.

Under Daimler-Benz, the company rebranded its vehicles as Mercedes-Benz and released several impressive models during the late 1920s, such as the Mercedes-Benz Type 630 and models S, SS, and SSK. One of their best and brightest engineers who helped develop these vehicles was Ferdinand Porsche, whose name would later become quite famous in the car industry.

Mercedes-Benz Under Nazi Rule

As for Carl, he remained on the Daimler-Benz board of directors and was able to see the success of his automobiles and marvel at just how far the auto industry had come in his lifetime. Carl Benz passed away just a few short years after the company’s merger in April 1929 at 84.

After his death, the company continued to grow in size and strength, becoming one of the best-performing car makers in the world. But it enjoyed some of its best years under the unlikely leadership of Adolf Hitler.

When Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933, he wanted to showcase German engineering and technology to the world, hoping to elevate his political standpoint above those of his contemporaries. He decided to impress the world by exhibiting German cars in international motorsports.

He immediately provided a significant subsidy to Daimler-Benz to get involved in Grand Prix races. No other car company of that era would spend as much time and money building cars as fast as Daimler-Benz did, and that fact became evident on the racetrack. From 1934 to 1939, Mercedes dominated Grand Prix races, driving as fast as 200 mph with their W25 and W125 models.

However, they were also challenged by a new rival, Auto Union, another German automaker sponsored by their own country. Auto Union would also have its fair share of success during the same period, winning 25 races from 1935 to 1937.

These successes put Germany on top of the world with motorsports events, especially Mercedes-Benz, which even became Hitler’s preferred car brand. One of the automobiles he was frequently seen in was the Mercedes-Benz 770, a large luxury vehicle mainly used by high-ranking Nazi politicians and other Axis officials.

Forced Labor and Post-War Recovery

However, with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Daimler-Benz company would soon find themselves in serious jeopardy. As the demand for civilian passenger cars became scarce, they began manufacturing military vehicles, submarines, tanks, and aircraft engines for the Nazi military. Their most extensive line of business was military trucks capable of transporting 3 to 6 and a half tons of supplies.

By 1942, they stopped producing public cars as all their resources were directed toward the war effort. As the war escalated, new staff were needed to handle the increased armament production. Since the entire workforce was fighting on the front lines, Daimler-Benz started recruiting women to keep up with their required unit volume.

However, this wasn’t enough to meet the demand, so the company resorted to using forced labour. These prisoners of war abducted civilians and detainees from concentration.

Camps were housed close to the plants and forced to work long hours under immense pressure from the Germans. Most of these workers were from Eastern Europe and were interned in barrack camps with poor, prison-like environments while the SS monitored concentration camp detainees under inhumane living conditions. Many people died in these camps, either from severe malnutrition, mistreatment, or even torture. By 1944, almost half of Daimler-Benz’s 63,000 employees were forced laborers.

The company took a big hit when the war ended in 1945 because of the Potsdam Agreement. All German assets abroad were confiscated and used to pay reparations. This led to Daimler-Benz losing all of its foreign subsidiaries, affiliates, and branches, and they were stripped back to their plants in their home country. In other words, they had to start all over and build themselves back up again.

Daimler-Benz was then restructured and had to denazify its top management. Because of these drastic changes, the company obtained a production permit from the American occupation authorities in 1946. Although its factory suffered severe bomb damage, Mercedes-Benz still had the advantage of owning its plant, as many other competitors, such as BMW or Adler, lost their sites when they ended up in Soviet territory.

The Mercedes-Benz company then focused on producing ambulances, police patrol vehicles, and delivery vans based on its 170V models. One of its plants was used as a repair facility for US military transports. By 1947, it was back to producing passenger vehicles, with only 1,045 of its 170V models being made that year. But even under these less-than-ideal conditions, Daimler-Benz profited just one year later.

The Modern-Day Legacy of Mercedes-Benz

By the 1950s, Mercedes-Benz regained much of its influence, making a solid comeback in motorsports events and achieving successful sales worldwide. So much so that by 1954, the company had already profited over a billion dollars.

Over the years, Mercedes has wholly shifted its image and become one of the most valuable car brands in the world. However, none of that would have been possible without Carl Benz, who had the courage and determination to realize his dream despite his humble background, challenges, and critics.

From its early struggles to becoming a world-renowned brand, Mercedes-Benz’s history is filled with incredible highs and challenging lows. The company’s evolution, marked by groundbreaking innovation and resilience, has solidified its place in the automotive industry.

Now that you’ve read the story, what do you think? Have you ever driven or owned a Mercedes? What was your experience with the brand, or what car do you dream of owning? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

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