The DMG (Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft), Daimler and Maybach (1896 To 1900)
Seeing an advertisement for a DMG car in the weekly magazine Fliegende Blätter, Jellinek now aged 43 travelled to Cannstatt, Stuttgart in 1896 to find out more about the company and its factory and the designers Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. He placed an order for one of the Daimler cars which was delivered in October of that year.
The car was a Phoenix Double-Phaeton with 8 hp engine and capable of reaching 24 km/h (15 mph). Maybach had designed the DMG-Phoenix engine, which featured four cylinders for the first time in a car, in 1894 when staying at Stuttgart's former Hermann Hotel.
DMG seemed a reliable enterprise, so Jellinek decided to start selling its cars. In 1898 he wrote to DMG requesting six more cars and to become a DMG main agent and distributor. In 1899 he sold 10 cars and in 1900 29. As well as French car makers such as Peugeot and Panhard & Levassor and other makers licensed to sell Daimler engined vehicles in France, there was a shortage of cars and Jellinek benefitted by being able to beat other suppliers lengthy waiting times.
Jellinek kept contacting DMG's designers with his ideas, some good but often with harangues such as: "Your manure wagon has just broken down on schedule", "Your car is a cocoon and I want the butterfly" or "Your engineers should be locked up in an insane asylum." This annoyed Daimler but Maybach took notice of many of his suggestions.
Every year in March, the French Riviera celebrated a speed-week, attracting many of the local high-society.
The events included:
- Nice-Castellane 90 km event (long distance race)
- Magagnosc event (touring race)
- Promenade des Anglais (sprint race)
- Nice-La Turbie (hill climb race)
- Monte Carlo (Concours d'elegance)
In 1899 Jellinek entered his cars in all of them. As the usage of pseudonyms was common, he called his race-team Mercedes and this was visibly written on the cars' chassis. Monsieur Mercedes became his personal alias and he became well known by it in the region.
Using the DMG-Phoenix, Jellinek easily won all the races, reaching 35 km/h (22 mph), but he was still not satisfied with the car.
Read more about this topic: Emil Jellinek