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Amazing Facts About Mercedes-Benz You Probably Didn't Know

Even gearheads might be shocked by these amazing facts about Mercedes-Benz, and the crazy history the brand has had.

By Skunk UzekiPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Driving a Benz is a good way to show off your money and good taste—and that's why so many celebrities love them. Mercedes-Benz is a brand that has become synonymous with prestige, power, and to a point, history, too.

They are the makers of some of the most reliable luxury cars, as well as some of the most beautiful exotic cars of all time. Gearheads love them for their speed, design, and power while regular drivers like them because they are fun to drive.

Oh, and when you add some nice car mods to a Mercedes, you can be sure to get compliments. Mercedes-Benz makes a really beautiful car that oozes class with every turn.

Are you a Mercedes fan? Think you know everything you possibly could about the automobile manufacturer's history? Check out these amazing facts about Mercedes-Benz, and you'll likely think again.

Mercedes-Benz is a company that was built by a couple who were in love.

The first Mercedes-Benz car was made in 1886, by founder Karl Benz. Because laws at the time required marriage partners to work together, his fiancee, Bertha, ended up helping in the car production process too.

Incidentally, Karl Benz also was one of the first people to own a driving license and allegedly enjoyed his time out on the road. That makes Mercedes-Benz a company that's built on love, if you think about it.

The company joined forces with Daimler, a budding car company that was known for the "Mercedes" cars that a famous race car driver used to enjoy. The two companies joined together and called their cars Mercedes-Benz.

Few facts about Mercedes-Benz is as touching as learning about its roots, right? Well, there's more to this company than just a great beginning...

Oh, we forgot to mention one of the most important historical facts about Mercedes-Benz out there...

Though there were other machines out there that ran on engines and would transport people, none of them were powered by a gas-powered internal combustion engine—primarily because it hadn't really been invented yet.

Karl Benz was actually the inventor of the first automotive machine that had an internal combustion engine. That makes the original Benz Patent Motor Car the first actual car in history.

Mercedes cars receive thousands of inspections before they ever hit the dealership lots.

You probably have noticed that Mercedes-Benz cars have a very high amount of reliability, and that some of their models are considered to be the most reliable sports cars on the market. Ever wonder what makes them one of the most reliable car brands in the world?

A lot of it has to do with the car brand's inspection test, and that's actually one of the most amazing facts about Mercedes-Benz. They currently hold an 11 to 1 worker-to-inspector ratio in their plants.

This means that every car receives thousands of inspections before it even hits the pavement, and that every step of the manufacturing process is monitored by a team of people.

They also have a 10,000 welding point rule.

While we're on the subject of talking about facts about Mercedes-Benz factories, let's talk about their carmaking process. One of the reasons why you never hear about a Mercedes-Benz with frame damage is because of each car has 10,000 different points where it's welded together.

For drivers, this means no bolts to tighten up and a way less shaky body—even after years of driving.

The Pope loves Mercedes.

Though Mercedes definitely has a lot of celebrity drivers we'll discuss later on, there's one driver in particular that stands out among the rest. Perhaps one of the most famous car enthusiasts to regularly drive a Mercedes is the Pope.

This is one of the only facts about Mercedes-Benz that will make every nun smile: the famously bulletproof Popemobile is a customized Mercedes M-Class SUV. The Popemobile is outfitted with bulletproof glass, in-car oxygen, and other amenities to help His Holiness ride in style.

Adolf Hitler also, unfortunately, loved Mercedes.

Not all people who drove Mercedes are good human beings. One of the more regularly cited facts about Mercedes-Benz is that Hitler actually drove one when he would ride in parades.

His Mercedes had a specialized seat that would lift up so that he'd be more visible to people in the street. His official non-parade transport was also a Benz, more specifically, a Mercedes-Benz 770 with a bulletproof windshield.

Ever the trailblazer, the first self-driving car was also a Mercedes.

This is one of the more little-known facts about Mercedes-Benz that deserves to be pointed out. Neither Tesla nor Toyota made the first self-driving car. The first self-driving car in history was made in the 1980s by none other than Mercedes.

It was an autonomous S-Class that was high-performance enough to hit 109 miles per hour on Germany's Autobahn, and it did it all without a driver. Later on the company also has created the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025—the world's first self-driving truck.

Stuttgart, the town that houses the Mercedes-Benz headquarters, is regularly called "Benztown."

Even the locals call it Benztown, primarily because so many of the people in Stuttgart tend to have careers that are entirely built up at Mercedes-Benz.

That's not a bad thing, either. Fortune called Mercedes-Benz one of the "Top 100 Places to Work" fairly recently, which means that Benztown is probably a pretty happy place to be.

A teenaged Benz lover enjoyed his car so much, he requested it to be his gravestone.

Perhaps one of the more telling facts about Mercedes-Benz is that people love them until the day they die—and sometimes after that. One such Mercedes enthusiast requested that he be buried in his Mercedes-Benz 240 Diesel car when he died.

He died very young and his brother commissioned a sculptor to make a true-to-life sculpture of his car as a memorial. The sculpture cost $500,000 in 1970, making it one of the most expensive monuments to feature a car on it.

The gravesite can be seen, stone car and all, at Kinden Park Cemetery in New Jersey.

Last but not least, it's also worth noting that Mercedes-Benz makes bikes, too.

No, not dirt bikes—actual bicycles. This is one of the few facts about Mercedes-Benz avid bicyclists might already know, but not gearheads.

Believe it or not, the company's produced bikes on and off for decades. These days, they still produce them, but buying them will cost you a pretty penny.

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About the Creator

Skunk Uzeki

Skunk Uzeki is an androgynous pothead and a hard partier. When they aren't drinking and causing trouble, they're writing articles about the fun times they have.

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