Mercedes-Benz CEO Sten Ola Källenius in a video recalled how the famous car company got its name. Speaking to David Rubenstein during an interview, an American billionaire businessman, the CEO recalled that originally the name of the company was Daimler and it was founded in 1886 by Gotllieb Dalmier. He ran the company and his chief engineer at the time was Wilhelm Maybach.
Cut to 15 years later, an Austrian industrialist called Emil Jellinek approached the duo and asked them to build him a racing engine.
“I want to go to Nice and I want to compete and I want to win,” Jellinek apparently said, according to Källenius.
Daimler and Maybach made him an engine and a car and Jellinek went on to win the competition. But he had one small condition. The car had to be named after his daughter Mercedes.
“So Daimler changed the name of the product – not the company – because he loved the name Mercedes. And the rest is history,” the Mercedes Benz CEO said.
The first petrol powered car was invented in 1886 by Carl Benz. Funded by his wife, Bertha Benz, the petrol powered vehicle only had three wheels and was called the “Motorwagen”.
Mercedes-Benz is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Daimler was a former part of the Mercedes-Benz Group and was turned into an independent company in late 2021.