Mercedes-Benz Museum

Link to PHOTO ALBUM:

This is from a few days ago, just catching up.

I will put a few pics here, but I took a ton, which you can see in my album above.

The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany is pretty good. As usual, most of the signs have English as well, there are Audio-Tours that are in English as well. A better bet is to plan ahead and schedule an English Guided Tour first thing in the morning. Although they only hit the highlights, you learn a ton of things you would not have learned wandering around by yourself.

The museum is obviously Mercedes biased, but there is a lot of history there as well.

There are two points, which I am sure most Mercedes fans know, but I did not. One is the meaning of the three pointed star. The points mean air, land, water.

The other is the origin of the name Mercedes. You can do a search for details, but early on there was an Austrian automobile entrepreneur who worked with Damler Motors Corporation, who named the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek. There is no record of her ever driving a Mercedes.

The Elevator is pretty futuristic

Some cars were pretty early. = LAND

The only motorcycle produced by the company. In 1885 Daimler created it as a test bed for his engine. This is a replica, as the original does not exist.

An early boat powered by the company's engine = WATER

And one of their engines powered a derigable. = AIR, the star is complete.

An early Boxer Engine

Here is a Mercedes I could afford. Of course, it would currently cost more than any motorcycle I would buy.

I loved the look of this car

That hatch in front of the tire is for the Mother In-Law seat. We call it a Rumble seat.

The Maharaji's car

If the red light on the top is on, the Maharaji is on board and you must bow down. If it is not on, then it is only the driver and you do not have to bow down.

There were a lot of cars owned by Celebrities. This one was owned by an astronaut. The story goes that in Germany, there was a prostitute that owned one of these. She was killed and it was found out that she had connections to a lot of politicians and powerful people. So the sales of the car in Germany dropped because it became known as a prostitutes car. Sometimes I think they make up new stories for each batch of tourists.

You might recognize this one

This caused a BIG scandal, bigger than the prostitute's car. This was Lady Diana's car. It was the first Non-British car owned by the Royal Family (or so the story goes) When she had kids she replaced it with a British car, saying this one did not have have room for car seats.