The American Mercedes
by Daimler Manufacturing Co.
In 1982 Mercedes-Benz of North America reprinted a rare 1906 booklet by Daimler Manufacturing Co., who built American Mercedes cars on Long Island.It brings to life this long-dormant U.S. partnership with Steinway (of piano fame). Describes the cars, engineering features, and relationship with Daimler in Germany. The original which is a small hardback is so rare that Mercedes themselves do not have one and has been seen for sale at $2000. The factory burnt down in 1907 and no more cars were made in America, although recently a Mercedes SUV has been made here.
A WORD ABOUT
THE AMERICAN MERCEDES
IT IS a distinct pleasure for us to publish this exact copy of a brochure issued in New York in 1906 on the American Mercedes automobile. We do so with the feeling that the 59,000 owners of Mercedes-Benz automobiles in the U.S., and many of our friends, will find it interesting to read about the first Mercedes cars in this country.
Some weeks ago, we ran across the original in the Thomas McKean Automobile Reference Collection in Philadelphia. It was tattered and yellow with age–the last bit of printed material covering these early contemporary automobiles–and we found it intriguing to go back 56 years, almost to the beginning of the Automobile Era in America.
The history of the American Mercedes automobile actually commenced in 1888 when William Steinway, the prominent New York piano-maker, paid a visit to Europe and, while traveling there, chanced to hear that Gottlieb Daimler in Cannstatt, Germany, was experimenting with self-propelled vehicles. Steinway was sufficiently intrigued with this report that he paid a visit to Daimler and later wrote in his diary that he had ridden "across the country" in one of Daimler's motorized quadricycles. Steinway was a man of imagination and vision, and he forthwith secured the American patent rights to Daimler engines and vehicles and, upon his return to the U. S., incorporated the so-called Daimler Motor Company.
Although Steinway had foreseen a large market in the United States for Daimler motorized carriages, the first real activity of the newly formed company was to issue a brochure featuring elaborate illustrations of boats and streetcars powered by Daimler engines. By 1892-93 the Marine Department was one of the more successful aspects of the Daimler Motor Company.
The first Daimler motors ranged from 1 to 4 horse. power and were manufactured in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1890, in the Board of Trade Building, now a part of the Underwood Typewriter Company's plant.
Steinway's failure to plunge deeply into the automobile business immediately upon his return from Germany in 1888 was directly attributable to the rutted dirt roads unsuitable for the new motorized road vehicles. There were, as a matter of fact, only some 15,000 miles of surfaced roads in the United States in 1906.
Following Steinway's death in 1896, the Daimler Motor Company was reorganized and emerged as the Daimler Manufacturing Company. By 1900 the company had imported eight different styles of Daimler, Panhard, and Levassor motorized wagons, and its first manufacturing efforts produced delivery trucks, two of which were purchased for use as small animal ambulances by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
