Mercedes-Benz in motorsport

Benz Karl Benz's company, Benz & Cie., in spring 1888 had granted the sole agency rights for Benz vehicles and engines in France to Émile Roger. Roger was not only a high-performing sales partner for Carl Benz, selling vehicles from Germany with great success; this step also marked the beginning of foreign sales for Benz. A single Benz competed in the world's first motor race, the 1894 Paris–Rouen, where it finished 14th in 10 hours 1 minute. In the 1908 French Grand Prix, Benz scored second and third behind the winning Mercedes. In that era, based on its Grand Prix cars but with an engine intended for airships, Benz also built the "bird beaked" Blitzen Benz that set land speed records several times, reaching in 1911. That record gained that model the reputation of being faster than any other vehicle including trains or planes. Despite Germany being in a crisis in the early 1920s, Benz got again involved in Grand Prix motor racing from 1923, introducing the mid engine layout to GP motorsport at the "European Grand Prix", the 1923 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Also built in part by Rumpler engineers, they used the virtually unchanged Rumpler chassis. They were fitted with a DOHC inline six producing Despite a promising start, with a fourth and a fifth (and one retirement) in their debut, and the expected public acceptance did not materialize. Financial difficulties led to a merger with the nearby Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in 1926. Daimler/Mercedes Mercedes 18/100 GP with 4.5 liter, the type that won the 1914 French GP, demonstrated in 1977 The Mercedes Simplex of 1902, built by DMG as the first purpose-built production race car—much lower than their usual designs—which were similar to horse carriages; that model dominated racing for years, and the Daimler company adopted the name for its products. In 1908, and again just before the beginning of the First World War, the DMG Mercedes 18/100 GP won the July 1914 French Grand Prix, finishing 1–2–3. The GP formula for that year restricted engine capacity to 4500cc and weight to 1100kg. In the US, Mercedes won the Elgin Trophy with driver Ralph DePalma in 1912 and 1914. won the 1922 Targa Florio in a pre-war Mercedes GP 1914/4.5 painted red After the war, Ferdinand Porsche, since 1906 at Austro-Daimler, was recruited by the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and became chief engineer in Stuttgart. Due to the financial crisis in Germany, talks with Benz were already under way. Anyway, Daimler made an effort to win at the Targa Florio, the road race in Sicily that was introduced in 1906, with several cars and engine configurations. Porsche upgraded existing pre-war 1914 models and built newer ones, also with supercharger and smaller 2 liter engines for current GP rules. Instead of the usual white for German race cars, they were painted red to blend in with the Italian entries, and Giulio Masetti won the event with a pre-war 4.5 liter GP car. Mercedes entered the 1923 Indianapolis 500 with three supercharged cars. In 1924, Christian Werner added a second Targa win for Mercedes, this time in a smaller post-war GP 2 liter supercharged car again painted red to blend in with Italians cars. The inaugural 1926 German Grand Prix at AVUS in Berlin was won by Rudolf Caracciola as "privateer" with a modified version of the Mercedes GP car as Daimler was already busy with merging with Benz. Mercedes-Benz in his white elephant Mercedes-Benz SSK, 1929 Zbraslav-Jíloviště hillclimb As Mercedes-Benz, production was split among the facilities of both companies, while the unified company factory discontinued GP racing efforts until the 1930s. Ferdinand Porsche continued as chief engineer, but Hans Nibel took over in 1929 ( he died already in 1934). Designs were numbered in a new scheme. The smallest project, W01, was never built, thus the entry level Mercedes-Benz W02 2 liter became known as 200. At the other end of the model range, the supercharged Mercedes-Benz W06 sportstourer became known as Mercedes-Benz S-Series, with S for Sport, later versions Super Sport, and Super Sport Kurz (Mercedes-Benz SSK). These Porsche designs with big 7 liter engines, supercharged up to 300 hp, were raced by customers as two-seat sportscars well into the 1930s, especially by Rudolf Caracciola who won the 1931 Mille Miglia, the 1931 German Grand Prix and was fast at 1931 Le Mans and even at the 1929 Monaco Grand Prix where much smaller current Grand Prix cars succeeded. ==Grand Prix motor racing==