Description
Author: David Scott-Moncrieff, Hardbound, 435 Pages, ISBN: 9780856140587, This Revised Edition Published in 1979 - Second-Hand book in excellent condition !
Three-Pointed Star has long been acknowledged as a classic marque history. This revised edition has been updated and expanded to include a unique selection of over 150 photographs spanning the history of Mercedes-Benz, many of them reproduced directly from rare albums and never published before.
The story of the rise of Mercedes-Benz begins in the middle of the 19th century with the early years of two great motoring pioneers, Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler. It tells of Benz's struggles to adapt his stationary two-stroke engines to road vehicles and the first public trials in 1885 of his petrol-driven three-wheeler. At the same time Daimler and his friend, Wilhelm Maybach, were also working on the development of the internal combustion engine and, by the turn of the century, their designs were so successful that their engines were being made in Britain and on the continent as well as by themselves. In 1900, Paul Daimler, Gottlieb's son, made a brilliantly successful sports-car which was called 'Mercedes' after the lovely daughter of Emile Jellinek, the financier, and from that time until the merger with Benz et Cie in 1926, all cars made by the German Daimler Company have been called 'Mercedes'.
The fame achieved by both Mercedes and Benz racing-cars here and in America has been second to none. We hear of the development of the great 120-h.p. racing-cars of the early 1900s which reached speeds of nearly 90 m.p.h. over wicked road surfaces, of the great Mercedes wins in the 1908 and 1914 French Grand Prix and of the records established by the epic 200-h.p. `Blitzen' Benz.
The manifold successes achieved by Mercedes-Benz sports-cars in the 20s and by the supreme racing-cars of the 30s are fully described. The brief, brilliant Indian summer of Mercedes in Grand Prix racing with the 21/2-litre formula car in 1954 and 1955 finishes one part of the story.
This new edition takes the Mercedes-Benz story right up to the present day. It describes the full range of production cars available in tho 60s and 70s, including the new 'T' series statior waggon, and gives a detailed account of the company's research and development activities in such diverse fields as the record-breaking C111 project, road safety, and the revolutionary '0 Bus' system.
As the author remarks, in conclusion, 'None of these cars are particularly cheap, and some are very, very expensive. But they all have one thing in common, for which they have always striven since the days of Gottlieb Daimler and William Maybach — quality.'
