» JELLINEK

Mercedes’ original owners, that they name the company’s vehicles after his 11- year- old daughter. It would stick for good.

But, dig deeper and it’s easy to see Jellinek was more than just the right man with the right idea for naming a new vehicle.

He was a visionary, a man who took advantage of time and place and transformed the moment into something meaningful.

His stamp on Daimler’s product would be profound.

Before the turn of the 20th Century, Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach had been selling cars under the Daimler name since the early 1890s, but although these vehicles were reliable, they weren’t fast or romantic.

Jellinek, an avid automobile and race fan, offered an alternative.

During a meeting at an informal Daimler car race in 1899, Jellinek told Daimler he believed the company could sell even more vehicles if customers thought they were sexy and fast. He suggested a number of innovations to Maybach as well as Gottlieb’s son, engineer Paul Daimler.

Jellinek believed that if the engine in the PhoenixDaimler car he had driven and owned sat much lower in the chassis there would be improved stability that would make the car quicker and more appealing. He proposed that the engine be in the front with the cabin and passengers immediately following.

Stationed along the French Riviera in Nice, Jellinek was onto something.

Daimler and Maybach agreed to build the Model 35PSD, in part because Jellinek also agreed to purchase 36 of the new vehicles, a number believed to be the largest sale order in automotive history to that point.

Soon, Daimler was producing a 6.0- literengine version of the vehicle that indeed was faster. The new car produced 35 horsepower, 11 more than the previous car, and accelerated with ease. And with the engine riding in a lower position, stability and handling were greatly improved.

Built in 1901, the car was a raging success, enjoying a good run on the street as well as the race courses in the mountains near Nice.

Where most of its predecessors had been tall and unsightly, this car was low and sleek with rear- wheel- drive and a honeycomb radiator in front.

Everyone wanted it — celebrities, millionaires, doctors and lawyers — and, just as Jellinek had suggested, the cachet would follow. American owners included Isaac Guggenheim and Henry Clay Frick. On the course, William K. Vanderbilt took several records in a 90- horsepower car produced later. But that was only half the story.

Of course the new version of Daimler’s vehicle needed a name to match, something romantic and inviting.

Jellinek, by then an influential member of the Daimler Motor Works board and the sole agent in AustriaHungary, France and the United States, had an idea.

Mercedes, his 11- year- old daughter and third child, had the perfect name for the new Daimler car. Jellinek had even been using her name as a pseudonym for his own race cars.

Mercedes is a Spanish Christian name meaning “grace.”

Indeed, it was a perfect fit, something synonymous with status and power.

The company agreed and the name caught on. By 1902 a trademark had been taken out in her name.

More than a century later, it still fits.

Mercedes means power and grace. It means substance and style. And it means an 11- yearold girl from Nice could never have imagined the impact. Just imagine.