Mercedes-Benz

Eras

• Patent-Motorwagen, The first car. Karl Benz's three-wheeler patented in January 1886, Bertha Benz driving it 106 kilometres to Pforzheim without telling him and inventing the road trip and the brake lining on the way, Daimler and Maybach's engine, and the machines that came in the first two decades.
• Blitzen Benz and SSK, Brass-era speed. The 200-horsepower Blitzen Benz taking the land-speed record in 1909, the Targa Florio cars, the supercharged S, SS and SSK models of the twenties, and the Kompressor whine that announced them.
• Silver Arrows, The Grand Prix cars of the thirties. The W25, W125 and W154, the paint reportedly scraped off to make the weight limit, Rudolf Caracciola and Bernd Rosemeyer, the duels with Auto Union, and the state money and politics behind all of it.
• Fangio, Juan Manuel Fangio. Five world championships, the W196 with its enclosed streamliner bodywork, the 1957 Nürburgring drive that is still argued to be the greatest ever, and the years when Mercedes won by simply arriving.
• Le Mans and DTM, Closed-wheel racing. The 1952 Le Mans win and the 1955 disaster that ended the programme, the Sauber-Mercedes C9, the CLK GTR and its flip at the Ford chicane, the AMG GT3, and the C-Class touring cars of the DTM.
• Formula One, Back in Grand Prix racing as a works team. The engine deals with McLaren and Brawn, the Brackley and Brixworth operations, the hybrid era and eight straight constructors' titles, Hamilton and Rosberg racing each other, and the seasons since.
• 300SL Gullwing, The car with the doors. A racing spaceframe that forced the hinges onto the roof, direct fuel injection on a road car in 1954, the roadster that followed, and the object that is now among the most valuable cars in existence.
• SL and Coupes, The grand tourers. The Pagoda, the R107 that ran for eighteen years, the later SLs, the SLK and SLS and SLR, the CLK and CLS, the two-doors bought for the way they look.
• S-Class, The car where the technology arrives first. The W116 and the first production anti-lock brakes, the W126, airbags, the W140's over-engineering, the Maybach-badged versions, and the saloon that every rival benchmarks against.
• E-Class, The middle of the range and the backbone of the company. The Ponton and the Fintail, the W123 that ran a million kilometres, the W124, the four-headlamp W210, and the estates, taxis and diesels that did the actual work.
• C-Class and Compacts, The smaller cars. The 190E and its Cosworth engine, the C-Class through five generations, the A-Class and its elk-test rollover, the CLA, and Smart, Mercedes learning to build something cheap.
• G-Class and SUVs, Off-road and the SUVs that followed. The G-Wagen built for the military since 1979 and barely restyled since, the ML that opened the American plant, the GLA, GLC and GLE, and the point at which the range became mostly high-riding.
• Unimog, The universal machine. A farm tractor that turned into the vehicle you send where roads do not exist, portal axles, extreme articulation, fire and forestry and expedition versions, and the cult that grew around it.
• Trucks and Buses, The commercial side, which is most of the company by volume. The Actros and the long-distance haulage business, the Citaro and the city bus, the Sprinter's ancestors, and the vehicles that carry everything else.
• Vans, The working boxes. The Sprinter, Vito and Viano, the panel vans and the campers built on them, plus the ambulances and the coachbuilt conversions.
• Maybach, The luxury name, twice. Wilhelm Maybach's original cars and the enormous prewar Zeppelin, the 57 and 62 revival of the 2000s that never sold, and the Mercedes-Maybach badge that finally made it work.
• Engines, What is under the bonnet. The overhead cam and the supercharger, direct injection, the diesel that Mercedes put in a passenger car first, the V8s and the V12, AMG's one-man-one-engine assembly, and the hybrids.
• AMG, Affalterbach. Two engineers leaving Daimler in 1967 to tune the cars themselves, the Red Pig at Spa, the Hammer, the buyout, and the badge that turned into the performance division with its own engines and its own factory.
• Factory Floor, How they are actually built. Untertürkheim and Sindelfingen, the press shop and the body-in-white line, the robots and the people working alongside them, paint, final assembly, and the plants outside Germany.
• Crash Testing and Safety, The engineering nobody sees until they need it. Béla Barényi's crumple zone patented in 1951, the rigid passenger cell, the sled and the barrier, the dummies, ABS and the airbag, ESP after the elk test, and the accident research team.
• Concept Cars, Ideas built once. The show cars and design studies, the aerodynamic record-breakers, the C111 in orange, the Vision series, the interiors that never reached production, and the design studio where the shapes start.
• Electric Cars, The change of powertrain. The EQ range and the dedicated platform, the batteries and where they come from, the charging network, the Vision EQXX driving a thousand kilometres on one charge, and the plants being retooled for it.
• Advertising, How the cars were sold. The print campaigns and the television spots, the star in the badge, the showroom, the motor-show stands, and Janis Joplin asking the Lord for one, which they later used to sell them.
• Museum, The company looking at itself. The Stuttgart museum's double-helix ramp, the collection and the restoration workshops, the classic centre, the anniversaries, and the documentaries and retrospectives about the marque.
• DaimlerChrysler, The merger of equals that was not. The 1998 deal with Chrysler, the culture clash, the losses, the 2007 sale to Cerberus, and what the episode cost the company in the decade it lasted.