Researching Birth Of Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz wants to celebrate their ability to make great cars and distribute them to willing Americans all across the country. In order to celebrate properly they are first trying to determine what the birthday of Mercedes is. Many believe that the true birthday falls on 1886 – which was the day that Karl Benz applied for his “vehicle with gas engine operation” patent.
However, there are many historian automakers that believe the true birthday is farther back then this. Do you go all the way back to 1678 when a Flemish priest was believed to have demonstrated a small steam car to the Chinese emperor? What about Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot successfully demonstrating such a vehicle in 1769? Or do you fast-forward to 1789 when the first U.S. auto patent was granted to Oliver Evans for a self-propelled vehicle?
Some historians even trace the automobile’s roots back to the Middle Ages. The 1993 book Carriages Without Horses quotes Mother Ursula Shipton, a “self-proclaimed witch” from the 15th century as prophesying “carriages without horses shall go, and accidents fill the world with woe.”
In the chapter “What or Who’s on First,” the book notes that in 1950, auto historian Rudolph Anderson observed: “The automobile was born in the supernatural and bred in the spectacular. Its supernatural beginnings are found in mythology and biblical prophecy which foretold self-moving vehicles of strange design and stranger purpose.
Out of these shadowy visions, there grew in the minds of men the idea of the automobile which showmanship and pageantry made the sleek reality of today. Old Testament prophets Nahum and Ezekiel trumpeted the coming of the automobile. Nahum said ‘chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle against one another in the broad ways; they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings.’ ”
Ever intent on marking auto anniversaries, Mercedes-Benz has published a list of important ones. They include January 1893, when Wilhelm Maybach developed the spray nozzle carburetor, the precursor to the modern-day carburetor and January 19, 1903, which marks the time the first four-cylinder inline engine from Benz & Cie left the test rig in Mannheim. You’re forgiven if you haven’t sent a Hallmark card for either event.