- In 1886 Carl Benz patented the tricycle, which is today considered to be the mother of all cars. It had a 984ccm one-cylinder engine producing 0.9HP making it capable of doing 15 Km/h. It was produced in Mannheim, Germany by Benz & Co. The same year Gottlieb Daimler produced his first car which looked like a horse less carriage. It had a 469 ccm four-stroke engine, producing 1.5 HP making it capable of doing 16 Km/h.

- The first production car was the 1894 Benz Velo and it participated in the first car race ever recorded, which was the Paris-Rouen car race. It became evident to both Benz and Daimler that the racing had a huge advertisement potential and they both entered many races.

- The origin of the "Mercedes"-name can be found in Daimler's racing efforts. The Austrian Consul-General in Nice, Emil Jellinek, was Daimler's agent for the French Riviera. At the same time he was racing the Daimler cars in France. In 1900 he asked Daimler to design a new sports-car which should be unbeatable, and he wanted exclusive rights to sell this car in Belgium, France, Austria-Hungary and the USA. The result was the Daimler Phønix 35. However the Panhard company all ready held the rights for sale of all Daimler cars in France, so to overcome this "problem" Jellinek renamed the cars "Mércèdes" after his ten-year-old daughter. The Daimler Phønix 35, which by the end of the year was only known as Mercedes, was unbeatable on the race track. Gottlieb Daimler died the same year, giving control of the company to his chief engineer Wilhelm Maybach.

- Up until 1909 Daimler had overshadowed Benz at the race tracks, but early that year Benz astonished the racing world. At Daytona the "Blitzen Benz" with its' 200 HP engine could do 205 Km/h. The next year it broke the world speed record at a stunning 228 Km/h. Both Benz and Daimler did well both financially and on the race track, for instance Mercedes held all the three first places at the French Grand Prix in 1914, and they won in Indianapolis the year after.

- At the beginning of the first world war, both the Benz and the Daimler factories were converted into production sites for war material. With the oncoming war in mind, Kaiser Wilhelm II sponsored a competition for aircraft engines. Benz won the competition with Daimler as first runner-up. However it was the Daimler engine which would over time impress the world the most. The DF80 engine had six cylinders 7250 ccm engine producing about 100 bhp. Considering the engine only weighed 176 kg it became a very potent aircraft engine of it's time. This engine was capable of flying non-stop more than 1300 km in sixteen hours and 20 minutes, while carrying 573 liters of fuel and 54 liters of oil at the point of take-off. A slightly modified version was used in the Mercedes 28/95. To avoid the high taxation of cars (even in 1914) the specifications for the car read 28 hp, but delivered about 95 bhp, giving the reason for the name of the car.

- After the war both Daimler and Benz went back to producing cars. As the German economy was in a terrible state the car sales fell, and considering that Germany had 86 car factories which produced about 144 different car models, there was no other way but to "merge". In May 1924 Daimler and Benz signed a technical cooperation agreement, and on the 1 July 1926 the two companies completed the merger. This brought together Ferdinand Porsche, Fritz Nallinger and Hans Nibel. Three car geniuses under the same roof. Porsche stayed with Daimler-Benz for only two years but but contributed greatly to the compressor engines which followed later.

- The K was one of the first cars with a compressor engine, and it was a modified Daimler 140S. The next one out was the S with it's 180 HP engine, followed by SS and SSKL in 1930. All of these cars had 6 cylinder engines with a volume of upto 7.1 liters, and all of them were successful racing cars.

- In 1930 the world economy was still in trouble after the Wall Street Crash and Black Thursday, despite this Daimler-Benz launched it's biggest and most prestigious car uptil that time. The 770 Grosser was a huge car powered by a 8 cylinder 7.6 liters engine giving 200bhp in the supercharged version. Even though Daimler-Benz had a 12 cylinder double-six engine ready, it was not used in the Grosser. The car itself was not a statement of great science, as most of the technical solutions were dated, but it was car to show off in. With an price tag of astronomical proportions it was a car for truly wealthy people.

- At the Paris Saloon in 1931 one of the most important Mercedes-Benz cars ever to be build was introduced. Although it looked a bit dull(?) the 170 was a rather potent and sturdy car with it's 6 cylinder engine, independent wheel suspension, hydraulic breaks and thermostat. This car was Daimlers-Benz's answer to keeping the factory alive given the economic problems Germany was struggling with. Although it had a small engine of 1697 ccm producing 32hp, the lightweight body of the car made it capable of doing 112 kph. Daimler-Benz sold 14000 cars of the 170. A cheaper version was launched, which was named 170V, and Daimler-Benz sold almost 100000 cars of this type. It was this car which made Daimler-Benz capable of surviving and recovering from the Second World War.

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