Emil Jellinek
The visionary who helped reinvent the automobile
Article Graham Robson Images daimler archives
Perhaps we have all been too casual for far too long. Certainly, we all know that the first automobile with “Mercedes” on the grille came along in 1901, 15 years after Carl Benz had invented the automobile and Gottlieb Daimler had first motorized a carriage.We also know that Emil Jellinek was much involved, and that Mercédès was the name of his eldest daughter. But before that there was a considerable back story that we ought to understand. After all, if the first Mercedes, and then the subsequent Mercedes-Simplex, remains such an important milestone in the evolution of the automobile even today, then surely the man who inspired its development deserves to be better known.
The original company of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) was set up in 1890. Despite significant difficulties in the early days, it was not long before the firm, in addition to its profitable business manufacturing gasoline engines for boats, offered for sale a small series of significant automobiles, including the twin-cylinder Phoenix model. Not only that, but Daimler engines used under license also began to appear in French cars sold by Peugeot and Panhard. A few years later, in 1897, an energetic businessman, entrepreneur and diplomat by the name of Emil Jellinek contacted the company regarding the possibility of selling their cars in France.
Jellinek’s early years
Born in 1853 in Leipzig, Germany, Emil Jellinek was the son of a well-respected Czech-Hungarian rabbi, Dr. Adolf Jellinek. When Jellinek was still very young, the family moved to Vienna; his first job at 17 years of age was with a railway company in Moravia, (from which he was fired, so the story goes, because he was organizing train races at night). When he was 19, he moved to France, where his father used his business connections to set the young Jellinek up as a young diplomatic attaché for what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although that empire would be obliterated by the events of World War I, it was one of the largest political alliances in Europe before the turn of the century.
Jellinek was first assigned to diplomatic posts in Tangier and Tetouan in Morocco and later in Oran, Algeria. Moving back to Austria, he opened links with an insurance company, got involved in trading on the stock market and became a bank officer. Having married in 1882, he fathered two sons – Adolph and Fernand – before a much-loved daughter arrived in September 1889. Her name, Mercédès – meaning “favor” in Spanish – would become a good-luck charm in his business and personal affairs and have a major effect on Daimler in particular and the world of motoring in general.
As the 1890s progressed, Jellinek’s network of business and social contacts expanded. Before long he had established a winter residence in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast of the French Riviera, and shortly took up permanent residence in that wealthy and fashionable city. There he became more and more active as a motor trader, selling the latest automobiles to his wealthy young friends. He must have cut quite a figure at society parties in Nice, with his vivid appearance, luxuriant handlebar mustache and obvious passion for the automobile.
At first, Jellinek represented several different makes, both French and foreign, and he was clearly well respected and very successful. Before the end of the decade, his automobile business continued to grow so steadily that it became his most important commercial activity. Not only that, but he soon became a committed motoring enthusiast who, according to an early motoring historian, was “… a small, excitable man in pince-nez who, although a wizard at finance, was in the matter of motorcars, like Toad of Toad Hall – whatever he had, he wanted something bigger and better. ...”
Perhaps it was this enthusiasm that caused him to respond to company advertising in 1897 by traveling all the way from Nice to the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) factory at Cannstatt, a suburb of Stuttgart. Jellinek not only wanted to see the latest Daimler Phaeton with its 6-horsepower Phoenix engine, but also wanted to find out more about the company.
Although he was apparently impressed by what he learned and the test run he had in a car – he subsequently ordered one and took delivery in October 1897 – he was not impressed by the Phaeton’s top speed of a mere 15 miles per hour. As an avid follower of motorsport in France, he knew that Daimler-engined Peugeots and Panhards were already going much faster.
Ever the businessman, Jellinek proposed a deal: If Daimler would build him four motorcars that could exceed 25 miles per hour, then he would buy them and undertake to sell the cars to his wealthy associates on the Riviera. Although Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach at first protested their chassis were not intended to withstand such speeds, in 1898 they supplied him with the Daimler Phoenix Double-Phaeton, powered by an 8-horsepower 4-cylinder engine previously used only in watercraft. When Jellinek swiftly sold the machines and immediately ordered six more, Daimler and Maybach concluded that this was a man they could to do business with.
Expanding influence
By Jellinek’s established standards, what happened next was almost predictable. First of all he set up shop in Nice as a DMG main agent and distributor, and soon had talked his way on to the board of directors in Cannstatt where he would become an influential figure. Acting as one-man marketing, competition and development department, he not only promoted the brand through his social contacts and racing activities, but also provided feedback to engineers Daimler and Maybach to improve the cars’ competitiveness. In the process, Emil Jellinek would also become instrumental in creating the main characteristics of the modern automobile.
As part of his promotional activities, Jellinek set up a racing team in 1899 to take part in the many automotive competitions held during Semaine de Nice – Nice Race Week – a week-long automobile festival held on the Cote d’Azur at the end of March. As it was the fashion at the time for wealthy motoring enthusiasts to contest races using a pseudonym, Jellinek, taking inspiration from his beloved daughter’s name, entered two cars under the nom de guerre, “Monsieur Mercedes.” With their excellent reliability, one of his DMG machines took first place. Much encouraged, the following year Jellinek again entered two cars in Nice Race Week events. Sadly, at the Nice-La Turbie hillclimb on March 30, 1900, his driver Wilhelm Bauer crashed into the hillside on one of the tight curves after losing control while trying to avoid a pedestrian. Maybach insisted the accident proved that Daimler motorcars should not be raced, but Jellinek argued that the problem was due to the Phaeton’s high center of gravity, short wheelbase, and antiquated design which reached back to the horse and carriage.
Though the DMG board wanted to withdraw from racing to refocus the company’s efforts – Daimler had died only a few weeks before the race – Daimler’s son Paul, who had stepped in for his late father, apparently agreed with Jellinek. The irrepressible entrepreneur’s great achievement of selling 34 new cars during the year certainly helped carry the day.
Ordering motorcars for 1901, Jellinek asked for several improvements. Since he planned to use them in motor racing, he wanted the cars to be faster. In an agreement with DMG signed in April 1900, he guaranteed to take no fewer than 36 of these new cars if they could be designed to his specifications. Crucially, he demanded that these machines were to be badged as “Mercedes,” after both his racing pseudonym and the name of his beloved daughter, who was only 10 years old at the time.
Looking back, this appears to be a typical Jellinek deal, for not only would it expand the company’s commercial interests in the affluent south of France, but it came with the demand that Jellinek’s control over the new cars’ commercial future be secured. With the stipulation that all the initial cars were to be delivered to him in Nice before the end of 1900, he also secured distribution rights in several other European and South American countries, as well as the United States.
Designing an automobile for the future
But what should this new car be like? Jellinek, himself no engineer but a visionary of all things to do with motoring, wanted DMG to break free of its established format of lofty, ponderous and heavy vehicles. Once convinced, Maybach immediately began designing an entirely new engine to be the heart of a completely new car, weighing nearly 200 pounds less than the previous model but more powerful. This innovative engine with cam-controlled intake valve was combined with a cooling system that was likewise innovative, using a honeycomb radiator that was not only very efficient but also played its own significant role in defining the shape of the modern automobile.
Compared with any previous car, the new type was a revelation. It featured a low-slung I-beam steel-chassis frame, an engine and transmission mounted lower in the frame than ever before, plus a 4-speed transmission combined with the final-drive mechanism, all installed under the front seat with chain drive to the rear wheels (a compact Daimler/Maybach innovation). This pioneering layout was married to a simpler, lower suspension, a longer wheelbase and a sporting steering setup with a diagonal steering column and outboard steering gear to reduce kickback to the steering wheel. The body could easily be converted from a two-seat racer with space for spare tires to a four-seat touring car for social use after the races.
The engine, though relatively light by previous Daimler standards, was a 4-cylinder 5,973cc power unit with cam-controlled intake valves, rated at 35 horsepower. With higher rpm capacity, it had great potential and soon proved to be very reliable in racing use. The car looked – and was – smaller, nearer to the ground, with better road handling than any of its immediate competitors. It would soon prove the value of its integrated design and later earn the “Simplex” name for the simplicity of its operation – a name introduced starting in 1902, although the vehicles were never badged as such.
The car was almost everything that the previous Maybach-Daimler had never been; it not only transformed the image of DMG in Europe, but also started a new trend that would sweep across the world during the next decade. Before the Mercedes, cars were effectively still horseless carriages, but after the Mercedes, they became motorcars in their own elegant right. As this writer once commented in an earlier article, “The new Mercedes was not only a sensational racing car, but it was technically important in every way. …”
This, incidentally, was an instance of happenstance rather than perfect planning. Not only was the delivery of the cars to Jellinek in the south of France much delayed – only the very first car arrived before the end of the calendar year – but the initial outing in the Grand Prix of Pau (a street race in south west France) was a complete fiasco; during pre-event trials, there were major problems with the engine and the transmission, and retirement from the race itself came only seconds after the start.
What happened at Nice Race Week in March was a complete reversal of all that. In professional driver Wilhelm Werner’s hands, the vehicle’s power-to-weight ratio – it weighed only 2,640 pounds in racing trim – made it fastest in the sprints, quickest up the Nice-La Turbie hillclimb, and winner of the Nice-Aix-Sénas-Nice 244-mile race, averaging 36.1 mph.
Becoming an international marque
The influence of that 1901 race week cannot be understated. Visiting American motoring enthusiast William K. Vanderbilt bought one of the 35-horsepower Mercedes cars and shipped it home to race on Long Island. American publisher Gordon Bennett – emulating the America’s Cup competition – endowed the Gordon Bennett Cup to be awarded to the nation from which the fastest car would come, thus creating the first international racing event, a contest that Mercedes won impressively in 1903.
After these spectacular successes of the first Mercedes car, Jellinek’s influence at DMG became all pervading – to some of his colleagues, it seemed that he could do no wrong – and during the next few years, most of his suggestions, mainly concerned with the development and marketing of new models, were embraced. From him, it seemed, came not only the idea of building a totally new model range but establishing a new image based on the motorsport successes.
Maybach would introduce an improved model with 40-horsepower engine in 1902 – the first Mercedes-Simplex – adding enclosed cams and improved carburetion to cope with increased engine speeds. Retaining the same general design, the racing cars progressed rapidly from 35 to 40 horsepower, then 90, and finally to an outrageous 6-cylinder 120 horsepower; Simplex customer versions developed along a parallel path.
If only Daimler-Mercedes could have found some legal way of making sure that the ideas were not copied by other companies – notably Benz, of course, which would remain a real rival for another 20 years – but it could not. Accordingly, the Simplex chassis and engine design was adopted by other manufacturers, gradually spreading across the world.
Several Mercedes-Simplexes would be more powerful than the original racing machines, but not outstandingly so. The basic layout of chassis, transmission and chain drive would remain the same, but the wheelbase would be stretched to allow more capacious and more completely equipped bodies of all types to be fitted. It was not long before closed limousine types were added to the very apex of the lineup, as well as delivery vans and taxis. At the time, the company followed the guiding principle of “Comfort by means of simplicity.”
The Mercedes brand
During this period, the Daimler name was quietly retired, though it would remain the corporate identity, with Mercedes being applied to all new models; by the time all vehicle assembly had been moved from the fire-ravaged factory in Cannstatt to the nearby location of Untertürkheim, there was an integrated range of Simplex models in the lineup.
For a time, there were 18/22, 28/32, 40/45 and 60/70 types available – all of them using a derivative of the 4-cylinder engine, with a variety of cylinder sizes – that had originally raced with such success in the Nice Race Week. Subsequently, Mercedes’s publicists looked back at this period and commented, “The main advantages of this car were the easy starting and good getaway, the silent running of the engine, and the elasticity, irrespective of the speed and performance ranges.”
Soon, however, time and engineering fashion had marched on yet again, the need to move from chain drive to shaft drive to the rear wheels had become apparent, and with Paul Daimler’s return from Austria to take over as head of engineering design at DMG, the Simplex pedigree was gracefully retired; at almost the same time, Emil Jellinek retired from the supervisory board.
It was the end of a fascinating turn-of-the-century story, where self-powered road-going vehicles were transformed from relatively crude horseless carriages into elegant early-century automobile designs. And with it, of course, came the name of Mercedes and all that it would mean to the motorcar and its industry in the eventful century stretching out ahead.
Emil Jellinek in full diplomatic dress, circa 1908.
Mercedes Jellinek, at age 11, about a year after the Daimler motorcars her father sold began to be branded with her name.
At the first competitive Semmering Hillclimb, 1899, in Austria, Jellinek (in white pith helmet at the steering tiller) won his class driving a 16 HP Daimler Phoenix. The design and performance of the motorcar was soon to change out of all recognition.
Nice Race Week, April 1902; E. T. Stead, winner of the Nice–La Turbie hillclimb, in his Mercedes-Simplex 40HP. The previous year’s Nice Race Week champion 35HP model had been a “Mercedes;” with the advent of the more powerful 1902 40HP model, the range would henceforth be known as “Mercedes-Simplex.”
View of the Mercedes stand at the Paris Auto Show, December 1902. The event was described in the contemporary press as the “Mercedes Show,” because most manufacturers had adopted key features of the 1901 Mercedes 35HP for their models. A portrait of Jellinek’s daughter hangs above the “Mercedes” sign in the center of the photograph.
Putting a 1903 Mercedes-Simplex 18/22 HP through its paces on the stretch from Nice to La Turbie. Emil Jellinek (touching his cap with back to the vehicle) tested all new models on this demanding route with its steep gradient.
A cutaway drawing of the 1903 Mercedes-Simplex 60HP Gordon Bennett racecar.
At the fourth Gordon Bennett Cup race, held July 2, 1903, in Ireland: Victor Camille Jenatzy (start number 4) greets the crowd from behind the wheel of his winning Mercedes Simplex 60HP racer.