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N0KFQ > TODAY 22.11.14 18:57l 64 Lines 2738 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Nov 22
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Sent: 141122/1656Z @:VE2PKT.#QBC.QC.CAN.NOAM #:60550 :40618_N0KFQ
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Nov 22, 1900:
First Mercedes goes for a test drive
On this day in 1900, the first car to be produced under the
Mercedes name is taken for its inaugural drive in Cannstatt,
Germany. The car was specially built for its buyer, Emil
Jellinek, an entrepreneur with a passion for fast, flashy cars.
Jellinek had commissioned the Mercedes car from the German
company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft: it was lighter and sleeker
than any car the company had 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.) In exchange for this 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,"
a four-wheeled carriage with an engine bolted to it. In 1889, the
two men built the world's first four-wheeled automobile to be
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. Then, as the story goes, he traveled to D-M-G's
Cannstatt factory, charged onto the factory floor wearing a pith
helmet, pince-nez and mutton-chop sideburns and demanded that the
company sell him the most spectacular car it had.
That car 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 8-horsepower Phoenix. Jellinek was impressed
enough with the Phoenix 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. 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 was fast. It also introduced the aluminum
crankcase, magnalium bearings, 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.
In 1902, the company legally registered the Mercedes brand name.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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