Emil Jellinek and his daughter Mercedes

Emil Jellinek was born in Leipzig on April 6, 1853. As a schoolboy, he brought his parents anything but joy. After several years' private tuition, he never stayed at any of the schools he was sent to for long. Young Emil rejected every attempt to make him learn. At the age of 17, he started work as a civil servant with the Rot-Kostelec North-Western Railway Company but had to leave again only two years later.

Emil Jellinek was then sent to France and from there at the request of the Austro-Hungarian Consul, he went to Tangier. A year later, he went to Tetuan as a Consular Agent, married a Frenchwoman and built up a successful trading business with North African native products.

In 1881, he returned to Vienna to take over the agency for an insurance company. He was eventually appointed inspector - yet something drew him back to Algiers. It was here that his two sons, Adolph and Fernand, were born. In 1889 Emil Jellinek returned to Vienna with his family.

Mercedes

In 1889, Jellinek's daughter Mercedes was born - a Spanish girls' name meaning "grace". Emil Jellinek's wife died four years later. His business activities soon became so profitable that he was able to move to Nice. There he bought himself his first vehicle, a Dion-Bouton tricycle. This was followed by a three-wheeled Léon-Bollée Voiturette which was subsequently replaced by a four-seater Benz carriage. A newspaper article drew Jellinek's attention to Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and in 1897 he traveled to Cannstatt specifically to visit the Daimler factory, where he ordered his first Daimler car, a 6 hp belt-driven model with a two-cylinder engine, which was delivered to him in October 1897. However, Jellinek soon found that the car's top speed of 24 km/h was too slow. He wanted 40 kilometers per hour and ordered two more cars: the Daimler Phoenix cars supplied to him in September 1898 with front-mounted 8 hp engines were the world's first road-going cars with four-cylinder engines.

Emil Jellinek, who ran a large establishment in Nice and developed good relations with international financiers and aristocrats, became increasingly active as a businessman from 1898, promoting and selling Daimler cars especially to the top echelons of society. In 1899, DMG already supplied ten cars to Jellinek and as many as 29 in 1900.

Jellinek demanded ever faster and more powerful cars from DMG. He entered these in race meetings - first and foremost of these was the Nice week - where he would race under a pseudonym, using his daughter's name. He soon became known as "Monsieur Mercédès" in motoring circles.

In April 1900, Jellinek concluded an agreement with DMG concerning sales of cars and engines and the decision was taken to use "Mercedes" as a product name. In addition, it was agreed that a new engine "bearing the name Daimler-Mercedes" was to be developed. Two weeks later, Jellinek ordered 36 of these cars at a total price of 550,000 marks - a sizeable order even at today's equivalent value of DM 5.5 million. A few weeks later, he placed an order for another 36 cars, all with 8 hp engines.

The first car 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 stir in the first year of the new century. With its low center of gravity, pressed-steel frame, 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 Mercedes cars were found to be unbeatable in virtually every discipline, attracted enormous publicity for Jellinek and the Mercedes. 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.

"Mercedes" was lodged as the trade name on June 23, 1902 and legally registered on September 26. From June 1903, Emil Jellinek obtained permission to call himself Jellinek-Mercedes, commenting: "This is probably the first time that a father has taken his daughter's name."

In 1907 Jellinek was appointed Austro-Hungarian Consul General and shortly afterwards Mexican Consul. In 1909, Jellinek retired from the motor vehicle business to devote his energies entirely to his duties as head of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate in Monaco. He nevertheless remained an interested observer of automotive engineering developments until his death on January 21, 1918.