Well, since someone brought it up:
^^This last bit got the trivia portion of my brain
going, and something just didn't seem right. Please
correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure this doesn't need to
be asked..), but didn't this Jenatzy fellow win this
race in a Daimler-Benz, and soon afterwards this model
line would be named after his daughter, Mercedes ? I
have honestly read something to this effect long ago.
Close -- it's the right idea, but the wrong time and person.
Mercedes-Benz automobiles are made by the Daimler-Benz Company, named
for Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benze, each of whome founded his own
manufacturing company in Germany before 1900. In 1901 Emil Jellinek,
Austro-Hungaian consul at Nice, France, and a wealthy man, undertook to
sell one year's production of the Daimler factory, 36 cars, if they
were named after his daughter, Mercedes.
By 1901, when the Daimler Motor Company had been using the name
Mercedes for its cars for several years, the three pointed star
together with the name was decided upon for the trademark. It looked
like the current three-pointed star, but had Mercedes at the bottom of the
circle.
In 1926, when the Daimler Motor Company and Benz and Cie AG were merged
to form the present Daimler-Benz AG, the Daimler emblem and that of
Benz and Cie AG (a circled laurel wreath with BENZ in the center of the
circle) were combined to form the emblem that has been used ever since.
The British Daimler Company, had no financial connection with the
German firm except for a licensing arrangment around 1900. (There, that
makes it suitable for british-cars!)
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