What do the three points in the Mercedes star have to do with Jack van Gelder? We delve into history, dating back to the very first car to ever drive a long distance.
Three men play a crucial role in the creation of the Mercedes-Benz brand: Gottlieb Daimler, Carl Benz and Wilhelm Maybach. Before the Daimler and Benz companies were merged in 1926, they each had their own car brand. Karl Benz had patented the first motorized tricycle in 1886, the Benz Patent Motorwagen, with which his wife Bertha drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim two years later. She was the first woman to travel a long distance in a motorized vehicle.
Carl Benz’s company was called Benz & Cie, the logo was the company name surrounded by a laurel wreath. Gottlieb Daimler was the first to design a car with four wheels. Then, together with Wilhelm Maybach, he founded a company that built motorized vehicles, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG).
The Mercedes brand comes from a girl’s name
The brand name Mercedes has a completely different origin. Austrian Emil Jellinek, who sold DMG cars, won a race in Nice with a Daimler Phoenix and entered under the name of his daughter, whose full name was Mercédès Adrienne Manuela Ramona. Because Jellinek and his team won many races in their fast Daimlers, the name Mercedes became famous in motorsport.
Finally, Mercedes was registered as a brand in 1902. In exchange for a lucrative order of 36 cars – for which Jellinek paid the astronomical amount of 550,000 marks at the time – he was allowed to trade Daimler cars under the Mercedes name in Belgium, France and the US, among other places.
Three-pointed star for the land, sea and sky
Initially, the logo consisted of the name Mercedes, in an oval. But that looked too much like the Maserati logo. Subsequently, the logo was changed to a three-dimensional gold star. The three points marked the dominion on land, sea, and air. Which brings our thoughts back to Jack van Gelder’s enthusiastic commentary on the famous TROS program. The Mercedes name disappeared from the gold logo, but returned in 1916.
During the First World War, the turnover of both DMG and Benz & Cie plummeted and in the post-war years, when the German economy was in a deep crisis, German car brands also struggled. That is why the Daimler and Benz companies merged to form Daimler-Benz.
The logo was a mix of the old DMG and Benz & Cie logos. From 1926, the Mercedes star was surrounded by the Benz laurel wreath. Since then, hardly any major changes have taken place. The Mercedes star was, is and remains one of the most iconic logos in the automotive world. But the laurel wreath has not disappeared either. To this day, above the proud star in the grille, the old logo with the laurel wreath can be seen on the hood.