Leading Daimler dealer Emil Jellinek (1853-1918) had the inspired idea to put the name of his daughter, Mercédès, on the front of Daimler’s cars, and the first to appear was the Mercedes 35 PS. Then, in 1926, Daimler merged with Karl Benz’s company to form Daimler-Benz as a company and Mercedes-Benz as the brand that went on all its vehicles.

Karl Benz gave us the first vehicle that we could describe as a car all the way back in 1885.

135 years later, the company that bears his name is still going strong, and is one the leading premium car makers in the world. But over the years it’s ploughed its profits back into developing technologies to make cars better in a myriad of ways, and many of those features have spread far beyond Mercedes.

Let’s then look at all the important things Mercedes and its Benz predecessor did for the very first time in the automotive world on a a production car: