Mercedes-Benz Independent Service

Where the Automobile Began

In 1876 Nikolaus August Otto built the first four-stroke gas engine, ending a long search for a practical power source. Gottlieb Daimler, once a colleague of Otto, developed hot-tube ignition in his own workshop and raised engine speeds far beyond what had been possible, showing that the internal-combustion engine could drive a vehicle. Working with Wilhelm Maybach he created the float carburettor that made petrol a usable fuel, and in 1885 he built the Reitwagen, a motorised two-wheeler.

Meanwhile Karl Benz added his own electric ignition system and produced a commercially viable engine. On 9 January 1886 the Mannheim manufacturer was granted a patent for his 'vehicle powered by a gas engine' — the three-wheeled Benz. In the same year, and quite unaware of Benz's work, Daimler tested his first motor car near Stuttgart. Two men, working close to one another yet independently, had set the world in motion.

Their companies, Benz & Cie and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, competed for years. The Mercedes name entered the story through Emil Jellinek, an Austrian businessman and consul in Nice, who raced a Daimler named after his daughter Mercedes, won, and ordered a batch of cars on condition they carry her name. From 1901 Daimler's cars were sold as Mercedes, and the name was registered in 1902. The three-pointed star — symbolising motorisation on land, on water and in the air — gained the Benz laurel wreath when the two firms merged as Daimler-Benz in 1926.

In Türkiye, the company's local history began in 1967 with the founding of Otomarsan in Istanbul, which started bus production in 1968 and later became Mercedes-Benz Türk, building buses in Istanbul and trucks in Aksaray for domestic sale and export.