Mercedes-Benz truck company turns 100

By Russell Williamson

Daimler-Benz is preparing to celebrate 100 years of manufacturing trucks, making it the oldest commercial vehicle maker in the world.

As the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, Daimler-Benz has come a long way in those 100 years with its vehicles, both commercial and passenger cars, now recognized as being at the forefront of automotive technology.

The company's success can be seen in its position as one of Indonesia's largest commercial vehicle manufacturers and the leader in the luxury car market.

However, success did not come easy. Daimler's first truck prototype, shown to the German government in 1892, was dismissed as unworkable and a foolish venture.

Undeterred, Gottlieb Daimler pressed on and four years later, in September 1896, the German vehicle manufacturer, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, published a sales brochure offering its first range of four different special purpose trucks.

The open trucks were offered with payloads of between 1.5 tons and five tons. Driven by Daimler-Phoenix engines, with power outputs of up to 10 hp, the trucks could achieve a top speed of about 12 kmh.

Following brochure's publication, the first truck, powered by a combustion engine and used for commercial purposes, was sold to the British Motor Syndicate on Oct. 1, 1896.

Resembling a horse drawn vehicle, the truck was driven via the rear wheels by a 4 hp, 2-cylinder 1060cc engine.

The truck weighed 1,200 kilograms (kg) and had a payload of 1,500 kg.

However, with the engine mounted at the rear of the vehicle, loading proved difficult, so Daimler and his partner, Wilhelm Maybach, built another model with the engine mounted on the frame beneath the driver's seat.

A year later, the two men moved the engine to the front of the vehicle, sitting it over the front axle, a configuration which remains in trucks to the present day.

Meanwhile, in a nearby town, Carl Benz, having been inspired by Daimler's first truck, also began working on a combination delivery truck, which was based on his light motor car, the Velo.

However, with a payload of only 300 kg and powered by a single cylinder 2.75 hp engine, it was hardly a competitor for Daimler's workhorse vehicles.

It was not until 1900 that Benz came up with a truck which could compete.

It was powered by a 14 hp horizontally opposed Contra engine and could cope with a payload of 5,000 kg.

Benz' company, Benz & Cie, went on to lead the development of the commercial vehicle industry, which had grown to field 13 manufacturers in the German Empire by 1903.

With military involvement increasing in prewar Germany, so too did the truck production, but during World War I commercial deliveries all but ceased.

After the war, Benz continued development of diesel truck engines and in 1923 fitted the first diesel engines designed for road vehicles into his five-ton trucks.

These four-cylinder, precombustion chamber engines developed 50 hp at 1,000 rpm and weighed 520 kg.

The following year, Benz, Daimler and MAN all showed different diesel engines at the Berlin Motor Show. However, in order to maximize technological development two of the companies merged.

In 1926, Benz & Cie merged with Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft to form Daimler-Benz.

From these humble beginnings, the Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle business unit has grown to cover more than 50 production and assembly plants around the world.

In 1994, these plants produced nearly 300,000 trucks, buses and vans, which were sold through more than 6,300 sales and service outlets worldwide.

Today, Mercedes-Benz trucks are at the forefront of technology, with powerful engines up to 530 hp, 14.6-liter V8s and standard features including antilock braking systems, electro-pneumatic gearshift systems and the very latest in air bag suspensions.