How the founding fathers of Mercedes-Benz started a transport revolution

Press, 14 February 1986, Page 21

How the founding fathers of Mercedes-Benz started a transport revolution

If any argument can be guaranteed to raise nationalistic passions, it must be "Who invented .. The reason, of course, is that very few inventions appear, fully developed, from the minds and hands of just one person. Every invention develops from an environment of ideas, usually in a number of countries. Every success is preceded by innumberable setbacks and blind alleys. The motor car is a good example. 1888 — the DaimlerBenz centenary Credit for the first truly practicable producation model motor car must, however, go to Karl Benz,

the 42-year-old gas-engine maker of Mannheim in Germany, whose name is still commemorated world-wide on every Mercedes-Benz motor car. It would be unfair to give all the credit to Benz. Gottlieb Daimler, also an engineer, played an equally important role in the birth of the motor car. Granting of the patent for the “first" successful car was largely an accident of luck and timing for Benz. Daimler produced the world’s first small, light, high-speed petrol engine and his motor carriage was on the road only months after Benz’s three wheeler.

On January 29 1886, Karl Benz was granted the German patent DPP 37435 for “a vehicle pro-

pelled by a gas engine.” By the definitions of the patent, the term “gas engine” meant an engine “the fuel for which consists of gas vapourised from a liquid by means of an apparatus carried on the vehicle.” The Benz vehicle was publicly tested and proved to be a success on July 3, 1886. Sixty miles away, in Canstatt, near Stuttgart, Gottlieb Damiier, working with Wilhelm Maybach, was developing a small, efficient engine, designed to replace gas and steam engines in industry, which would also be light enough for a variety of transport roles. Daimler’s engine was running in 1885 and demonstrated on a crude motor cycle. It was fitted to a converted horsedrawn carriage in 1886 and run later in the same year, but the first Daimler car worthy of the famous name was not completed until 1889. In that year Daimler and Mayback developed the first two-cyclinder Vee engine. It was installed in a wire-wheel car of completely new design. Daimler engines were also used in the first motorized trams, the first fire engine with an en-gine-driven pump, the first motor-driven airship, the first “locomobile” for driving threshers, feed grinders and pumps, the first dynamo in a lighting wagon and to drive boats. It is an oddity of history that Benz and Daimler never met. Their respective companies amalgamated only in 1926 under the name DaimlerBenz A.G., makers of Mercedes-Benz, one of the world’s greatest names in motor cars.

Up to the 1870 s, available steam or town-gas driven engines had a power-to-weight ratio unsuitable for any road vehicle, typically 1 horsepower for 440 pounds of weight. In 1877, Benz began a series of designs of light-weight, less expensive to manufacture gas engines and by 1883 had founded his own company to make them. He was forced, however, to use the 2-stroke principle because Nicklaus Otto had been granted a patent, in 1876, for the more efficient 4-stroke principle. Daimler was technical director of Otto’s company from 1872 until the end of 1881, when he went out on his own.

In spite of Otto’s patent, Benz went ahead to develop a successful, lightweight 4-stroke design. Luckily for him, Otto’s patent was overturned, in a court case which ruled that the 4-stroke principle originated long before Otto. The way ahead was clear.

Benz had his engine, but what sort of vehicle could he power with it? He had no precedents and no competitors; the roads were awful and no-one had ever seen a motor car. His solution was based on the bicycle, a common mode of transport in those days. Bicycles were simple, light-weight' and strong; essential features for Benz’s projected vehicle, which, when built, had two bicycle-like wheels at the back and one for steering at the front The single-cyclinder engine was also built as lightly and simply as Benz considered safe and practicable. It had some quite modern features, including pdppet exhaust valves,

coil ignition and a spark plug. Characteristic of the stage of engine development in the 80s were evaporative cooling, totalloss lubrication and a slide inlet valve, a carry over from Benz’s 2-stroke experience. Fuel was petroleum-based and engine speed was controlled within fairly close limits by a richer or weaker mixture supplied by a sur-face-mounted carburettor, the “apparatus carried on the vehicle” specified in the patent. For this 984 cc engine, Benz quoted 0.6 horsepower developed over a range of 250 r.p.m. to 300 r.p.m., which was considered quite a high speed at the time. Recently a replica of the engine was tested at the Technical University of Stuttgart and found to deliver 0.9 Horsepower at 400 r.p.m. Transmission, like the rest of the vehicle, was simple. A long level caused a driving belt to slide from an idler pulley to an engine-driven pulley. The drive was through a differential gear to two countershafts which were linked to the rear wheels by chains. Steering was by a tiller connected to the front wheel.

In 1888, Benz improved his tricycle car to the extent that it could climb a grade of 1 in 16 with two occupants and cruise at 10 mph on level ground. In 1893, he took an even more significant step forward by producing his 4-wheel , Victoria model. It still had a single cylinder but displacement was increased to 2.9 litres, delivering 3 horsepower. Later models had 4 and 5 horsepower engines.

When Daimler-Benz A.G. was created in 1926, Daimler had the models, the three-pointed star and the Mercedes name. Benz had the money and.*solid-

To the casual New Zealand observer it may seem strange that, with that background, the Daimler name has become virtually synomynous with the extremely grand vehicles used to transport royalty, aristocrats, lord mayors and visiting bigwigs of all sorts while only the Daimler star and Mercedes name remain on some of the world’s most prestigious cars. Maybe “Mercedes-Daimler-Benz” was just too much! The achievement of Daimler and Benz was a remarkable triumph. Within a very few years

they had not only made the motor car practicable but had given it a degree of reliability which assured its future success. Development and innovation, begun a hundred years ago, have continued without a break ever since. Today MercedesBenz cars with their immediately recognisable three-pointed star have, if possible, even more prestige than their uniquely distinguished ancestors. Daimler and Benz not only founded a major Industry; they also began a process that changed the face and the life styles of the world.