Mercedes Benz with its beautiful designs and precision engineering is in many ways representative of the great achievements of the German motor industry. However it has not always been plain sailing for Mercedes, they have gone through some very difficult times; one such occasion was quite recently, when there were so many concerns about Mercedes reliability that contract hire and leasing companies were reluctant to recommend Mercedes. There was some evidence of contract hire brokers switching potential Mercedes buyers into other marques, such as BMW and Audi. The Mercedes model that was most criticized in the motoring press was the M Class.In a survey carried out by The Consumer Association in 2003, Mercedes was downgraded by two categories, from best to average in reliability. Although to be fair all the German manufacturers came in for criticism, they said, "No major German marques have escaped the steady decline we have noticed in recent years". Interestingly the manufacturer that received the most complaints from those surveyed was Volkswagen.
The BBC's Top Gear carried out a survey in 2004; in which they placed the M Class last out of 142 cars surveyed. Since then Mercedes have been making great efforts to restore their good name and reputation and to once again have the Mercedes Benz name associated with high build quality and reliabilty.
In 1886 the world's first automobile was invented by Karl Benz. He patented the vehicle and called it the Benz Patent Motorwagen. Benz was based in the German town of Mannheim.The car's three wheels were little wider that today's bicycle wheels. The ride was rather harsh and the occupants had no protection from the elements. Lights to enable the vehicle to negotiate the poor road conditions at night had not been thought of.
In the meantime a gentleman by the name of Gottleib Daimler along with William Maybach were also busy inventing a car powered by an internal combustion engine. The vehicle was called the Daimler Riding car. The engine had an upright cylinder from which it derived its name the Grandfather Clock. Daimler called his vehicle a car but it was in fact a motorcycle, the worlds first. With its one cylinder, its speed at full throttle was 13 Kilometres an hour. Neither Benz or Daimler knew of the other's work, even although they were only working about 100 Kilometres from each other.
During 1886 Daimler and Maybach launched their Motorised Carraige, again they installed their Grandfather clock engine which was referred to as high-speed, the top speed was about 18 kilometres per hour, although compared to walking it was high-speed. It was the world's first four wheel car; although Karl Benz had patented his car in the same year, his was a three wheel vehicle. During 1889 Daimler exhibited another car that became known as the wire wheel car, at an exhibition in Paris. It certainly attracted a lot of attention, it is said that seeing this vehicle, is what started the French motor industry.
In 1890's Karl Benz was building two, three and four seater vehicles but now with four wheels. He had developed the steering system so that the two front wheels could turn on a different radius, making the car much more stable.
The Velocipide was a 2 seater vehicle developed by Benz in 1894, of which he sold 1200. It was fast for its day, at around 20 kph. His motorized bus which followed was beautifully designed but unfortunatey rather impracticle; wheels were still narrow and with roads more suitable for horse drawn carriages,it soon proved impracticle.
In 1896 Daimler produced a belt driven car, this time with two cylinders but still with a top speed of only about 18 miles per hour. Daimler also produced the world's first truck, which had a flat bed and was rather strange looking; it had various cabinets for storeage, that looked rather like kitchen cabinets. It was very slow at about 11 kilometres per hour but very popular. German breweries bought them for delivering beer and some were sold in England. In the same year Daimler produced a vehicle for carrying heavy loads, up to 500 kgs.They looked rather like a motorized version of the covered wagon from the Wild West.
The Dos a Dos car was launched by Benz in 1899 had a strange seat configuration; it had four seats two would face the rear of the vehicle and two the front. It was however fast at over 35 Kilometres per hour.
When Daimler died in 1990, control of the company passed to William Maybach. A very succesful motor racing driver and businessman, Emil Jellinek told Maybach that he should produce cars that were faster and more modern in design. He also asked Maybach to call his cars Mercedes; his young daughter's name. This is where the name Mercedes, that the cars still carry today, originated.
A number of more modern and faster car were produced by Daimler, in the early 1900's. There was the 40 horsepower Mercedes Simplex that suceeded the 35 horsepower model. It was a single seater car with a top speed of 80 Kilometres per hour by now the car had 4 cylinders. One of these models is believed to be the oldest Mercedes still in existence.
Benz launched the double Phaeton in 1905 it was 18 hp, but it was followed by the Double Phaeton two years later that was 75 horsepower. The car which had six cylinders, could achieve speeds of 94 kilometres per hour. Both Benz and Mercedes were starting to have success in motor racing.
When the First World War started, car production ceased and the factories started producing materials and milatry vehicles, for the war effort. This was also the case in Britain. When the war ended, the German economy was all but destroyed;. Inflation was virtually out of control and there was a severe shortage of fuel, these were very difficult times for Germany. Cars became very expensive to buy; a luxury tax had been imposed on cars and very few people could afford to buy a new car. Nowadays motorists in the UK can aquire a new Mercedes on contract hire, for a monthly payment of around 300, how things have changed.
It is said that in 1924 Daimler made an approach to Benz and proposed a merger but it did not go ahead. However during 1924 economic conditions were taking their toll on both companies and a merger agreement was signed by the parties and was finalized in 1926.
After the war Mercedes launched a sports car, it had two seats and a supercharged engine, the top speed was impressive at over 108kph. In 1927 Mercedes Benz then produced a touring car; they called it the Model S, the Model S was even faster at 160 kph. At the time it was hard to imagine that greater speeds could be achieved but one year later the SSK Sports was launched. It seems strange that it was specifically produced for hill climb racing, because one would have thought that that was quite a limited market. It had an extraordinary top speed approaching 200 kph.
The model 550K was launched by Mercedes Benz in 1934. There was a version called The Special Roadster, the maximum speed was 160 kph. It was a spectacular looking vehicle that most people even today would consider to be an elegant and beautiful car. At the time the car cost 28,000 Marks, which was a considerable amount of money.
The successor to the 500k was the 540K. It was very similar in appearance but a little faster at about 170 kilometres per hour. At the same time Mercedes Benz were producing the Mercedes- Benz 770, a large luxury limousine that the heads of industry would often have as their chauffeur driven vehicle. In these times quite surprisingly low numbers of some of the models were produced; approaching 420 of 540K were made and fewer than 120 of the Mercedes- Benz 770.
Mercedes were accused of using forced labour and prisoners of war, for their manufacturing, during the Second World War. They had become part of the German war effort but of course it wasn't a matter of choice; the British motor manufacturers were also part of the British War effort. The allied bombers, just as the German bombers targeted factories in Britain, heavily targeted the Mercedes manufacturing plants. At the end of the war, things looked very bleak for Mercedes; their factories lay in ruins, the machinery was damaged or destroyed and there was an extreme shortage of raw materials. Nevertheless in 1948 production was re started. 1951 saw the introduction of the 300 saloon, over 4500 were sold. The Mercedes Benz 300S convertible also went into production.
The 1950's saw the launch of the famous Gull-Wing 2 seater hardtop, which took the motoring world by storm. Its distinctive Gull-Wing doors opened up into the roof. With the doors open they did look remarkably like a gulls wings, the design was far ahead of its time. Many were sold in America although it really was very expensive, believed to have cost around $10,000 at the time. Nevertheless a very good investment; a 1955 model was sold at auction in Sydney Australia in 2006 for $777,240 Australian Dollars, $720,000 usd. The Gull-Wing was succeeded in 1957 by the 300SL an open sports car also very much in demand in America. It was very fast with a top speed of just under 250 Kilometres per hour.
Mercedes were always striving to make their vehicles safer and even in the 1960s they were carrying out comprehensive testing on their cars, measuring how they performed in different conditions. Although it's hard to believe, in today's world where almost anything seems technologically possible, that the only method that Mercedes had for collecting their test data was to have another vehicle drive behind the test car, connected by a very long cable.
During 1963 Mercedes Benz launched the 230SL, the first sports car to have a crumple free zone. It was not particularly fast compared with some of the previous models; it had a top speed of less than 200 Kilometres per hour. It was however hugely popular selling, nearly 20,000 models. Mercedes had come a long way from the days when they were making just a few hundred of each model. In 1978 Mercedes Benz introduced anti lock brakes (ABS). In 1981 they were the first manufacturer to introduce the airbag. One can only speculate on the number of lives and serious injuries, those safety features will have saved over the years.
The 190E came out in 1982 and in 11 years sold an incredible 638,000.Throughout the 80's and 90's Mercedes continued to sell large numbers of cars and in 1998 Daimler Benz merged with The Chrysler Corporation, effectively a takeover by Daimler Benz and formed Daimler Chrysler. It was not a success and in 2007 Daimler sold 80.1% of Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management for $7.4 Billion, having initially invested $36 billion in 1998.
Mercedes are now paying a great deal of attention to getting their build quality right and in a relatively short period of time have gone a long way to restoring their reputation and good name. Contract hire companies are once again happy to recommend Mercedes Benz and soon expect them, quite deservedly, to be once again categorised as best for reliability.
By Harvey Williams