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Mercedes-benz

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:''For other uses of the name Mercedes, see Mercedes.'' Image:Mercedes logo.jpg thumb|250px|Mercedes-Benz's world-famous '''''Three-Pointed Star''''' emblem, a registered trademark since August 1923. '''Mercedes-Benz ''' (commonly known as '''Mercedes''') is a famous Germany German brand of automobiles, buses, coaches and trucks owned by DaimlerChrysler (formerly known as Daimler-Benz). Mercedes-Benz is one of the premier automobile manufacturers in the world; it is also the world's oldest. Its primary competition in automobile production are Audi, Cadillac, BMW, Lexus, Bentley Motors Limited Bentley and Maserati. The three-pointed star was designed by Gottlieb Daimler to show the ability of his motors for land, air and sea usage. The sign first appeared on a Daimler vehicle in 1909. The Benz laurel was added in 1926 to symbolize the union of the two firms. The plain ring seen today was first used in 1937. Mercedes-Benz cars are one of the most technologically advanced vehicles and up to the 1990s were widely known for their flawless design and execution.

History
Image:1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK 34.jpg Ralph Lauren.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|250px|1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" in the [[Ralph Lauren collection.html" title="Meaning of 250px|1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" in the [[Ralph Lauren">thumb|250px|1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" in the [[Ralph Lauren collection">250px|1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" in the [[Ralph Lauren">thumb|250px|1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" in the [[Ralph Lauren collection Image:Silver SS.jpg thumb|250px|right|Silver SS Classic {{3d_glasses}} The origin of the company dates back to the 1880s, when Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz invented the internal combustion engine-powered automobile independently, in southwestern Germany. Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, who together invented the Four-stroke cycle four-stroke engine, worked together in Cannstatt (a city district of Stuttgart); Benz had his shop in Mannheim near Heidelberg. There is no record of the two inventors ever having met. In the early 1900s, the Daimler cars built at UntertÃ¼rkheim Untertuerkheim (also a city district of Stuttgart) were raced successfully by an Austrian dealer named Emil Jellinek, who entered the cars under the name of his daughter, MercÃ©dÃ¨s. After suggesting some design modifications, he promised the company a large order on the conditions that he was granted the exclusive Daimler concession for Austria-Hungary, France, Belgium and United States USA, and that he would sell the Mercedes 35hp new model branded as "Mercedes". The name change was also helpful in preventing legal troubles, as Daimler had sold exclusive rights to the name and technical concepts to companies abroad. As a result, luxury cars known as Daimler were and are built in England. A fire that gutted the old Steinway piano factory in New York that had been converted to produce Mercedes cars cut short the dream of an American-built Mercedes. The rival companies of Daimler Motorengesellschaft and Benz & Cie. started to cooperate in the 1920s to deal with the economic crisis of those years, and finally merged in 1926 to become the Daimler-Benz AG, which produced Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks. While focusing on land vehicles, Mercedes-Benz also built engines to power boats and airplanes (military and civil), and even Zeppelins. During the Second World War, Mercedes-Benz is known to have exploited more than 30,000 forced workers and prisoners of war, some of whom would eventually strike and be sent to concentration camps. This working force soon became essential to the production capacity of the company since 1941, and was a key to the construction of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe and war machine. Mercedes-Benz vehicles have a focus on high quality and state of the art engineering. As a result they have often been expensive and are made in lower volumes compared to cheaper cars. The company has carefully cultivated an image of superior engineering, quality, and service. The cars are often the vehicle of choice for the rich and famous. Perhaps most famous for limousine models, a number of notable sports cars have also been produced. For example, the early supercharged Mercedes SSK SSK developed by Ferdinand Porsche, and the Gullwing Mercedes-Benz 300SL 300SL in 1954. However, Mercedes-Benz has also produced higher volume, less expensive cars. Interestingly, the prototypes of the Volkswagen were built and tested in Stuttgart, in cooperation with Porsche. Before that, Mercedes-Benz also had a similar rear-engined, yet rather unsuccessful small car, the Mercedes-Benz 130 H 130 H. Their products have been known for the introduction of advanced technologies to carsâ€”notably fuel injection and Anti-lock brake anti-lock braking systems, amongst many others. However, it does not always work: recently, an active brake system installed in over 600,000 cars has been recalled to fix potential problems. In recent years the brand's reputation once sterling reliability record has been called into question when it was recently ranked rather low in consumer surveys. In one J.D. Powers and associates reliability survey it was ranked below Jaguar Cars, a company historically associated with notorious unreliability, but which has, under Ford's guidance, become one of the most reliable companies in the world, with its XJ model coming in first place in the 2003 British car customer satisfaction survey (Top Gear). In stark contrast, the Mercedes-Benz ML had an abysmal showing, in 2004 coming last as the worst car on sale (in the same survey) To address the problem, the company has invested heavily in recent years to stem the problem. Many still feel however, that the company has a long way to go to return to its former glory.

Motorsport
image:Mercedessimplex1.jpg Mercedes Simplex.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|A [[Mercedes Simplex 1906 in the Deutsches Museum..html" title="Meaning of right|250px|A [[Mercedes Simplex">thumb|right|250px|A [[Mercedes Simplex 1906 in the Deutsches Museum.">right|250px|A [[Mercedes Simplex">thumb|right|250px|A [[Mercedes Simplex 1906 in the Deutsches Museum. Mercedes-Benz has been successful in motor racing throughout their history. The Mercedes Simplex of the early 1900s was the first purpose built race car, much lower than the usual designs that were similar to horse carriages; it dominated racing for years. In 1914, just before the beginning of the war, Mercedes won the French Grand Prix, which was a blow to the French at that time. Benz raced an aerodynamically shaped ''Tropfenwagen'' in the 1920s before both companies united. In the 1930s, with their mighty Silver Arrows, they dominated Grand Prix racing in Europe (together with rivals Auto Union), while setting speed records up to 435 km/h (270 mph). The team was guided by the big Rennleiter Alfred Neubauer. In 1952, Mercedes-Benz returned to racing with their small and underpowered gullwinged Mercedes-Benz 300SL, which won the 24 hours of Le Mans, the Carrera Panamericana, and did well in other important races of that time like the Mille Miglia. On 1954-07-04, Mercedes-Benz returned to Formula One racing with a one-two win at the French Grand Prix with the Mercedes-Benz W196. This was a very important and victorious day for Germany, especially as later that day, the German football team won the Soccer World Cup. Mercedes dominated Grand Prix and sports car racing until retiring its teams at the end of the 1955 season, as planned at the beginning of that year. In addition, the Le Mans 1955 disaster, where a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR collided with another car and killed over 80 spectators, caused the cancellation of several races that year. Mercedes entered some big limousines in Rally racing Rallying in the 1960s and late 1970s. It was intended to enter Rally racing with the Mercedes-Benz W201 in the early 1980s. Yet, as all wheel drive and turbochargers were introduced by the competition (Audi Quattro) at that time, this was cancelled. Instead, on August 13â€“21, 1983 at the Nardo High Speed Track in southern Italy, the new compact-size W201 190 class, sporting a 16-valve engine built by Cosworth, broke three FIA world records after running almost non-stop (with only a 20-sec pit stop every 2 1/2 hours) in a total of 201 hours, 39 minutes and 43 seconds, completing 50,000 km at maximum speed of 247 km/h. It went on to become the 190E 2.3-16 touring model. Mercedes returned to sports car racing, (Sauber-Mercedes winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1989) and DTM touring car racing in the late 1980s. In 1994, the Indianapolis 500 was won with an engine from Mercedes who, realizing that a loophole in the rules for production-based engines would include any pushrod engine, built a very unusual purpose-built pushrod engine with a significant power advantage. This was done knowing that the "forgotten" loophole would be closed immediately after they took advantage of it and so the engine would in fact be usable for only this single race.

McLaren
In 1993 Mercedes made its return to Formula One as an engine supplier to the debut F1 team Sauber, with a V10 engine V10 engine manufactured by Ilmor. In 1995, the normally aspirated Mercedes-Ilmor F1-V10 moved to McLaren, replacing Peugeot. Mercedes increased its shareholding in the Ilmor company in 1996 and took full control in 2005. They have continued to design and build engines for McLaren. In the opening race of the 1997 Formula One season David Coulthard produced victory for Team McLaren Mercedes, and ushered in a new era of success. It was a significant result in racing, McLaren's first victory for three seasons and the first win for Mercedes-Benz since Juan Manuel Fangio's success at the 1955 Italian Grand Prix. McLaren and Mercedes went on to win one constructors' championship in 1998 and two drivers' championships in 1998 and 1999. However, recent years have seen a significant decline in Mercedes' F1 success, as they won just four races over three years, while suffering numerous engine failures and retirements. The 2005 season was much more successful for McLaren, winning ten of the nineteen races, but finishing second to Renault in the Constructor's title, and with its driver Kimi RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen finishing second in the Driver's title to Fernando Alonso of Spain. The 2006 season seems to indicate a return to the F1 front for the English-German outfit and their "silver arrows" ''(Silberpfeile)''. Mercedes and McLaren have, in 2003, jointly created a supercar. The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren has a carbon-fiber body with a 5.5l V8 supercharged engine. This is the same block as featured in other Mercedes, such as the SL55 AMG and the CLS 55 AMG, it has however been tweaked to give 454kw and 780nm of torque. The SLR has a maximum speed of over 330km/h and costs approximately $500,000. [http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Mercedes_Benz_SLR_McLaren-75322-1.html]

=2005 season
= Image:benz_car.jpg Mercedes-Benz B-Class.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|2005 [[Mercedes-Benz B-Class.html" title="Meaning of right|250px|2005 [[Mercedes-Benz B-Class">thumb|right|250px|2005 [[Mercedes-Benz B-Class">right|250px|2005 [[Mercedes-Benz B-Class">thumb|right|250px|2005 [[Mercedes-Benz B-Class McLaren Mercedes hoped to improve on a poor 2004 Formula One season 2004 season, which saw McLaren-Mercedes finish a distant fifth in the championship, a staggering 193 points behind world champion Ferrari. 2005 indeed witnessed a dramatic gulf in performance between McLaren and Ferrari, though in McLaren's favor. However McLaren was not able to fully capitalize on this opportunity due to the strength of Renault F1 Renault. Renault dominated the early races but by mid-season commentators named the McLaren Mercedes MP4-20 as the fastest car. Nonetheless McLaren suffered from the poor reliability of their otherwise much superior Mercedes engine. Engine failures at two consecutive races saw Kimi RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen penalized 10 places from his qualifying place which handicapped his races. At the Grands Prix of San Marino and Germany, Kimi RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen Raikkonen retired while in the lead. In the end, McLaren saw a much stronger second half of the season, and fought for the constructor's title with Renault, only to lose it in the last race. McLaren won ten races (seven for Raikkonen and three for his team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya), to Renault's eight (seven for eventual World Champion Fernando Alonso and one for his team-mate, Giancarlo Fisichella). The difference in points was due to the excellent podium record of the Renaults when McLaren won races, as opposed to the string of retirements for the McLarens when Renault won races. More recently, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren has become available for purchase, the 2005 model coming out with a base price of $452,750.00. The new model will have a top speed of 208 mph and a 0-60 time of 3.8 seconds.

Business Alliances

Studebaker-Packard Corporation
In 1958 Mercedes-Benz entered into a distribution agreement with the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana (US), makers of Studebaker and Packard brand automobiles. Under the deal, Studebaker would allow Mercedes-Benz access to their United States U.S. dealer network, handle shipments of vehicles to those dealers and in return received compensation for each car sold. Studebaker also was permitted to use the German automakerâ€™s name in its advertisements, which stressed Studebaker's quality over quantity. When Studebaker entered into informal discussions with Franco-American automaker Facel Vega about offering their Facel Vega Excellence model in the United States, Mercedes Benz objected to the proposal. Studebaker, which needed Mercedes distribution payments to help stem heavy losses, dropped further action on the plan. Mercedes-Benz maintained an office within the Studebaker works in South Bend from 1958 to 1963 when Studebaker's U.S. operations ceased. Many U.S. Studebaker dealers converted to Mercedes dealerships at that time. When Studebaker closed its Canadian operation and left the automobile business in 1966, remaining Studebaker dealers had the option to convert their dealerships to Mercedes-Benz dealership agreements.

Trivia
Image:Tony1.jpg thumb|250px|right|1959 Mercedes-Benz Ponton Type 180 Mercedes-Benz claims all of the wood used in its modern automobiles is raised on tree farms. This claim has not been confirmed, although some say that the wood Mercedes-Benz now uses is reject wood supplied by Jaguar Cars. Michael McClure's song "Mercedes-Benz (song) Mercedes-Benz", famously sung ''a cappella'' by Janis Joplin, was intended as a gentle satire on materialism, but has since been used in the company's advertising. On a BMW advertisement on German TV the driver of a BMW Z3 convertible raised his eyebrows after the first "buy me a Mercedes-Benz," and threw out the tape after "my friends all drive Porsches." Mercedes-Benz was the most popular brand name mentioned in List of most frequently mentioned brands in the Billboard Top 20 Billboard Top 20 songs in 2003 and again 2005. Since 1948, Mercedes-Benz has built the Unimog, or "Universal Motor-GerÃ¤t", a 4WD truck. It features extreme offroad capability due to offset axles and elastic frame, drive shafts for numerous additional machines, hydraulic and pneumatic connections etc. Despite its high price, the Unimog is popular as allround work horse, as snow plow, expedition vehicle in desert, jungle and mountains, and it has won the truck class at high speed desert races like Paris-Dakar. The first factory to be built outside of Germany after World War II was in Argentina. It originally built a massive number of Trucks. Some of which were slightly modified (by Mercedes Benz) to Truck-Busses, popularly named ''Colectivo'' (in Buenos Aires). The "New Russians" cliche includes driving a Mercedes-Benz S-Class Mercedes S 600, see Russian joke#New Russians Russian jokes: New Russians. In the popular animated show The Simpsons, Dr. Hibbert runs into and kills the family's cat with his Mercedes-Benz SUV. In September 2003, Mercedes introduced the world's first 7-speed automatic transmission. A Mercedes advertisement is seen before ''The Lost World: Jurassic Park'' on an orginal VHS copy of the 1997 movie (since Merecedes SUVs are used in the film). In the comedy ''Rat Race'', Jon Lovitz and his family steal Adolf Hitler's 1930s Mercedes-Benz from a neo-Nazi museum when their Ford minivan is sabotaged. The vehicle is later destroyed by a female biker gang (after Lovitz accidentally the finger flips the bird at them) and crashes into a World War II veterans convention (with Lovitz looking like and speaking like Hitler because of the ordeal).

Nomenclature
Please note that in 1994 (starting for the 1994 models), the traditional nomenclature of Mercedes vehicles had been changed. Since nearly the start of the company, it was the relative engine displacement that made up the first three numbers (1992 500E for example) and the last letter(s) that represented the chassis. In 1994, that was reversed in order so the it became the E500.

Significant models produced
*1938: Mercedes-Benz W195 W195 Speed Record-breaker *1953: Mercedes-Benz Ponton "Ponton" Models *1954: Mercedes-Benz 300SL 300SL "Gullwing" *1959: Mercedes-Benz Fintail "Fintail" Models *1960: Mercedes-Benz 220SE 220SE Cabriolet *1963: Mercedes-Benz 600 600 "Grand Mercedes" *1965: Mercedes-Benz S-Class *1966: Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3 300SEL 6.3 *1969: Mercedes-Benz C111 C111 experimental vehicle *1972: Mercedes-Benz W107 350SL *1974: Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 450SEL 6.9 *1974: Mercedes-Benz 240D 240D *1975: Mercedes-Benz 280 280 *1976: Mercedes-Benz 300D 300D *1980: Mercedes-Benz W126 500SEL *1983: Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 190E 2.3-16 *1997: Mercedes-Benz M-Class *1998: Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR *2***: Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM AMG *2004: Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren *2006: Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG

Buses
{{main|Mercedes-Benz buses}} MB also produces buses, mainly for Europe and Asia. The first factory to be built outside of Germany after WW2 was in Argentina. It originally built Truck-Buses, named Colectivo in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1950-1987). But now builds modern-style buses.

Vans
MB produce a range of vans. The Current Range consists of *Mercedes-Benz Vito â€” Light Van based on the Viano MPV with loaded weight of approx 1 tonne *Mercedes-Benz Sprinter â€” Mid sized van with loaded weights of 2 to 6 tonne *Mercedes-Benz Vario â€” Heavy van with similar load to a light truck (7.5 tonne)

Trucks
MB produce a range of trucks The Current Range consists of *Mercedes-Benz Atego â€” Light truck from 7 to 16t *Mercedes-Benz Axor â€” Mid Sized truck from 18 to 26t in rigid and articulated *Mercedes-Benz Actros â€” Heavy duty rigid and premium articulated â€” 18 to 41t *Mercedes-Benz Econic â€” Low floor version of the Axor for refuse and specialist applications

References
*Mercedes-Benz U.S.A. ''Mercedes-Benz''. Retrieved December 21, 2003 from [http://www.mbusa.com/brand/index.jsp]

See also
* List of Mercedes-Benz engines * Mercedes-Benz VIN codes * Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, the company's Vance, Alabama factory * Mercedes-Benz World, under construction at Brooklands, United Kingdom UK. * Active Body Control Mercades-Benz fully active suspension system * Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft * Mercedes 35hp was the original model (year 1900) that originated the brand's name. * Studebaker Packard Corporation * Facel Vega Excellence

External links
{{commons|Category:Mercedes-Benz vehicles}}
- BMW vs Mercedes Forum
- Mercedes-Benz Global Home
- International *
- Deutschland *
- Ireland *
- Canada *
- Argentina *
- India *
- Malaysia *
- Middle East *
- Australia *
- New Zealand *
- Singapore *
- South Africa *
- UK *
- USA
- Daimler Chrysler web site
- AMG Website
- Mercedes-Benz World, under construction at Brooklands, United Kingdom UK
- Mclaren Website
- Grand Prix History, Die Silberpfeile
- Grand Prix History, Mercedes-Benz Museum
- 1955 Le Mans Disaster
- Mercedes-Benz Performance Products
- 87+ Spectators Killed In 1955 Le Mans Crash
- History of Car Logos
- Songs that mention Mercedes in their lyrics (Google Answers)
- Mercedes-Benz owners community (CarDomain) - Pictures/write-ups contributed by members.
- Mercedes Clubs Worldwide (Google) *
- Mercedes Club of America *
- Mercedes Club of UK *
- Mercedes-Benz Car Club of Western Australia *
- Mercedes Benz Owner Club of Malaysia *
- Mercedes-Benz Club Russia *
- German Mercedes-Benz Owners Association
- "The Porter": web site special of the film presents by Mercedes-Benz
- Automotive industry portal with Mercedes-Benz news
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