Everything began with the invention of the wheel, an achievement that is shrouded in the darkness of history. The first known illustration of a vehicle with wheels is dated to the year 3000 BC. The invention of the wheel ushered in the development of mobility. Ever more refined mechanical systems and ever more ingenious features for carts and carriages made transportation and travel easier. The inventions of Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach finally ushered in the automotive age.Who invented the automobile? Assumptions concerning the answer to this question differ widely throughout the word. Most Americans believe that Henry FORD invented the car. In England, many people will tell you that the car was invented by Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. The widely held French view is that was Count Dion and Georges Bouton who invented the car. In Austria, even highly respected historians believed for a long time that the Viennese Siegfried Marcus built the first car in 1865 when he fitted a stationary engine to a cart and took it for a 200 meter test run.He went on to build a second vehicle with a four-stroke engine in 1888.this was the source of much confusion for decades because it was incorrectly identified as having been built in 1877 and was therefore presented as the world’s first automobile.100 years before Marcus, France’s Nicolas Joseph Cugnot designed and built a vehicle was later declared to be the first automobile in the world. It was a monstrous steam-powered affair which is said to have caused a road accident during a test run in 1769.in 1801 it was taken to the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris without having made any further impact on the history of the the automobile.Switzerland’s Isaac de Rivaz worked on gas engines from 1770 and was the first person to equip a stationary gas engine with electric ignition.in 1813 de Rivaz fitted an engine of this type to a vehicle and conducted test runs in the area around Venvey on Lake Geneva.In 1883, the French industrialist Edouard Delamare-Debout-teville installed a gas engine in a three-wheeled vehicle. The experiment ended when the gas container exploded, the frame of a second vehicle with a liquid fuel engine broken during its first trials. Delamare-Debou-tteville gave up.In the USA, George Selden claimed that he was the inventor of the automobile. This son of a patent attorney had filed a paten application for a motor vehicle in 1879. He was granted the patent in 1895 without ever having built an automobile. Selden bombarded American car manufactures with demands for license fees. It was not until 1911, following protracted litigation, which Henry Ford succeeded in overturning the mysterious Selden patent.From a historical perspective, all of these would-be ―world’s first automobiles’have one thing in common: the influence which they exerted on the development of automotive transport was extremely short-lived because none of them had the necessary qualities to go down in history as a real breakthrough.In 1886, Karl Benz and the team of Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm May Bach initiated general motorization with their inventions. These gave rise to several hundred different types of vehicle and design concepts which continue to be appliedanywhere in the world to this day.The invention in the 1880s of the high-speed engine and the automobile enabled Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz—independently of one another –to lay the foundations for the motorization of road transport. With the help of financial backers and partners, they both invested their development projects in their own private businesses—in Mannheim, Benz founded the firm Benz & Cie, in October 1883, and Daimler Motorren Gesellschaft (DMG) was formed in November 1890.In order to gain publicity and a certain distinction for their products, both companies sought a suitable trademark.to begin with, the inventors used their own names –―Benz‖ and―Daimler‖, which vouched for origin and quality of the engines and vehicles. The trademark of Benz &Cie, remained unchanged, except that in 1909, the cog wheel symbol which had been used since 1903 was replaced with a laurel wreath surrounding the name Benz. But the turn of the century brought a completely new trade name for products from Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt: ―Mercedes‖. So what is the origin of this name?Mercedes- a Spanish girls’ name meaning ―grace‖-was the name of the daughter born in 1889 to the Austrian businessman, Emil Jellinek, who had homes in Baden near Vienna and Nice.A progressive thinker with an interest in sport, Jellinek turned his enthusiasm to the dawning age of the automobile, an invention he knew would be of key importance for future. As early as 1897,he made the journey to Cannstatt to visit the Daimler factory and ordered his first Daimler car—a 6 hp belt-driven vehicle with two-cylinder engine.But the car, delivered in October 1897 and with a top speed of 24 km/h, was soon too slow for Jellinek. He demanded 40km/h and ordered two more vehicles. Supplied in September 1898, the two Daimeler ―Phoenix‖ cars, with their front-mounted 8 hp engines, were the world’s first road vehicles with four-cylinder engines.Emil Jellinek had good contacts with the worlds of international finance and the aristocracy and became increasingly active as a businessman. In 1898, he began to promote and sell Daimler automobiles-in particular, within the higher echelons of society. In 1899, DMG supplied Jellinek with 10 vehicles; in 1900,he received as mangy as 29.Jellinek demanded ever faster and more powerful vehicles from DMG. From 1899,he also entered these in race meetings—first and foremost of which was the Nice week—where he would race under his pseudonym ―Mercedes‖, the name of his daughter aged ten at the time. Initially, he used the name not as an automotive brand name but merely as a team and driver designation.At the beginning of April 1900, Jellinek made an agreement with DMG concerning sales of Daimler cars and engines. The decision was taken to develop a new engine: bearing the name Daimler –Mercedes‖, thereby introducing Jellinek’s pseudonym as a product designation. Two weeks later, Jellinex ordered 36 of the vehicles at a total price of 550,000maks—a sizeable order even at today’s equivalent value of DM5.5 million. A few weeks later, he placed an order for another 36 vehicles,all with 8 ho engines.The first vehicle to be fitted with the new engine, a 35 hp racing car, was delivered to Jellinek by DMG on December 22,1900. This first ―Mercedes‖, developed by Wilhelm Maybach, the chief engineer at DMG, caused quite a sir in the first year of the new century. With its low center of gravity, pressed-steel fram,light, high-performance engine and honeycomb radiator, it featured numerous innovations and is regarded today as the first modern automobile.The nice week in March 1901, during which the Mersedes vehicles were found to be unbeatable in virtually every discipline, attracted enormous publicity for Jellinek and the Mersedes. In March and August 1901,the 12/16 hp and 8/11 hp sister models appeared. Jellinek’s orders soon stretched the Daimler plant in Cannstatt to full production capacity.―Mersedes‖ was lodged as a trade name on June 23, 1902 and legally registered on September 26. From June 1903, Emil Jellinek obtained permission to call himself Jellinek-Mersedes, commenting: ―This is probably the first time that a father has taken his daughter’s name.‖Benz, one famous vehicle brands of Germany. Nowadays, Benz has been sold all over the world with a great reputation. It is admirable for its perfect level of technology, excellent quality standards, innovation, and a series of classic coupe styles.In 1883, Benz began to establish the Mercedes and Rhine gas engine factory. At the same time, Daimler successfully invented the first high compression radio explosive motor. Both of them lighted the history of Mercedes-Benz vehicle factory in the early days.Benz invent a car using single-cylinder engine with a large flywheel, which was installed in the rear of the car, its max speed was up to 16km/hour. However, because other supporting technology is not mature enough, the car had a knack of breaking down just when people need it, he can’t even drive it in public. In august 1880, Benz’s wife-Beretta made a brave decision, she drove Benz’s car with her children to visit the child’s grandmother who live in more than 100 kilometers away. When she arrived, she immediately sent a telegram to Benz to tell him that the car stood the test of jolt and ask him to send the car to the Munich Trade Fair. She was also considered the world’s first female car driver because of this. The invention of Benz caused a great sensation in the Munich Trade Fair; people were surprised by the walking of gharry, after the fair, a large number of customers began to order Benz’s car, then he set the largest automobile factory in Germany and start producing legendary Mercedes cars.Benz’s car got the national patent certificate in 1886, which marked he realized his dream that integration the engine and the car perfectly, and our human’ history of transportation has lifted to new chapter. The first car in the world has less than 300kg’s overall weight, which concludes 100kg’s engine’s weight. Only a few weeks later, Gottlieb Daimler also got the patent right of his four-wheel vehicle. The same as the idea of ―land, sea, air‖ fully motorized, he applied the single-cylinder engine of the four-wheel vehicle to the airship and boat soon.Benz successfully developed the ―Victoria‖in 1893, which was the mostluxurious car and had the most advanced technology at that time. Later, he research the ―Velo‖sold 2000 mark, which was the first production car in the world. Afterwards, he changed the seat of ―Victoria‖ to be a face to face one, which made the car became the world’s first bus.In 1926, the two companies merged. They formally established Daimler-Benz, Mercedes-Benz was established after that merger. And this name was painted on a DMG vehicle used in races by a man in honor of his beautiful daughter. The name of the man is Emil Jellinek, who was the customer of Daimler Motor’s company. He use a new car which used a wide range of the innovative technology, including the strong engine, the cellular radiator, the long wheelbase and the low gravitational center. This was the most outstanding product at that time and it’s proved to be successful. ―Mercedes‖obtained the legal protection as a trademark. What’s more, Mercedes means happiness in Spanish which is called god’s language. After that, it became the formal name for the company.Mercedes-Benz had twice merged. After the First World War, only the companies which has strong financial and excellent brand can survive during the inflation and sale slumping period. So Benz and Daimler Car company formed the Syndicate Company at 1924, and then synthesized into the Daimler-Benz AG.. Finally, German Daimler-Benz and the Chrysler of the USA merged to be the Daimler-Chrysler Group which is operating all over the world. And Mercedes Car Group’s independent brand, the Mercedes-Benz, the Smart, and the May Bach, are the important pillar of the new group.As for the logo of Mercedes-Benz, the Trigeminal star sign was first used in 1909 by Mercedes-Benz’s official account. In 1873, Daimler used the trigeminal star to mark his living place on the letter which was mailed to his wife. And he wrote:‖someday, this star will enlighten the work of my whole life.‖As part of the 1926 merger, a new logo was created that word include a symbol for each and integrate the name of the two former companies. A three-pointed star had been designed by Daimler to show the ability of his motor for land, air, sea use. The traditional laurel wreath symbol used by Karl Benz was added along with his name to complete the new logo. The logo with a plain ring as seen today, was not used until 1937.The first time Benz came to China was about 20 century. Empress Dowager CiXi was enthusiastic to new technology. In about 1900, Germany sent her a Mercedes car (Benz Velo). This is still well preserved now in the Summer Palace. In 1986, the Mercedes-Benz’s Cars Sales Services Limited was established in Hong Kong. As the development of Mercedes-Benz, they migrate their headquarters to Beijing in 2006. Now the sign of Mercedes-Benz has become a symbol of the world’s most famous brand. There are more than 120 authorized sales and service center in China.。