"Brand heritage" is the rage among automakers, which hope to gild their sales by mining their past glories. Mercedes-Benz has taken this concept beyond retro car designs and sepia-tinted advertisements by creating Classic Centers to service and restore vintage Mercedes automobiles.
In keeping with this historical motif, Mercedes will also return to production, albeit in limited fashion, the first car made by Karl Benz, one of the company's founding fathers. Benz's rudimentary vehicle has often been called the world's first practical automobile.
Benz is said to have driven his three-wheel Patent Motor Car onto the streets of Mannheim, Germany, on July 3, 1886.
The water-cooled, rear-mounted engine produced less than 1HP at 400 revolutions per minute, and had a top speed of 16kph. The car, which has come to be known as the Motorwagen, was steered by a center tiller.
A Motorwagen in motion can be described as a mobile combination of a park bench and a vibrating bed. Each pulse of the single-cylinder engine shook the 585-pound vehicle.
Mercedes plans to build about 85 Motorwagen replicas, with 32 allocated to the US. The suggested price is US$49,500 plus shipping.
You will not be able to order a Motorwagen from your local Mercedes dealer; they will be available only through the new Classic Center, expected to open early next year in Southern California.
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