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N0KFQ > TODAY 22.12.15 16:51l 64 Lines 2910 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 79361_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 22
Path: IW8PGT<F1OYP<ON0AR<GB7CIP<IR0AAB<VE3UIL<VA7DGP<N9PMO<NS2B<N0KFQ
Sent: 151222/1447Z 79361@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1900
First "Mercedes" is delivered to its buyer
On this day in 1900, the first car to be produced under the
"Mercedes" name is delivered to its buyer: Emil Jellinek, the
Austrian car racer, auto dealer to the rich and famous, and bon
vivant. Jellinek had commissioned the Mercedes car from the
German company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. It was faster,
lighter, and sleeker than any car the company had ever made
before, and Jellinek was confident that it would win races so
handily that besotted buyers would snap it up. (He was so
confident that he bought 36 of them, paying D-M-G 550,000 marks
in all.) In exchange for his extraordinary patronage, the company
agreed to name its new machine after Jellinek's 11-year-old
daughter, Mercedes.
In 1886, the German engineers Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm
Maybach had built one of the world's first "horseless carriages":
literally, their vehicle was a four-wheeled carriage with an
engine bolted to it. In 1889, the two men built the world's first
four-wheeled automobile powered by a four-stroke engine. They
formed Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft the next year.
In 1896, Emil Jellinek saw an ad for the D-M-G auto in a German
magazine. Jellinek was a rich tobacco trader and banker with a
passion for fast (of course, "fast" was a relative term), flashy
cars. As the story goes, Jellinek traveled to D-M-G's Cannstatt
factory, charged onto the factory floor (wearing a pith helmet,
pince-nez, mutton-chop sideburns and a luxurious moustache), and
demanded the most spectacular car the company had. The first of
his D-M-G cars was sturdy, but it could only go 15 miles per
hour_not even close to fast enough for Jellinek.
In 1898, he ordered two more cars, stipulating that they be able
to go at least 10 miles per hour faster than the first one could.
Daimler complied; the result was the eight-horsepower Phoenix.
Jellinek was impressed enough with his new cars that he began to
sell them to his friends: 10 in 1899, 29 in 1900. At the same
time, he needed a racing car that could go even faster than the
Phoenix. Jellinek went back to D-M-G with a business proposition:
if it would build him the world's best speedster (and name it the
Mercedes), he would buy 36 of them.
The new Mercedes car introduced the aluminum crankcase, magnalium
bearings and the pressed-steel frame, a new kind of coil-spring
clutch and the honeycomb radiator (essentially the same one that
today's Mercedes use). It was longer, wider, and lower than the
Phoenix and had better brakes. Also, a mechanic could convert the
new Mercedes from a two-seat racer to a four-seat family car in
just a few minutes.
The new car was a hit. In 1902, the company legally registered
the Mercedes brand mane, and in 1903, Emil Jellinek legally
changed his own name to Jellinek-Mercedes.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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