AUTOMOTIVE ANECDOTES

The automobile has no future
Time and again in the history of the automobile there are misconceptions: Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941) was convinced that the automobile had no great future. He made the following statement: "I believe in the horse. The car is only a passing phenomenon."

And Gottlieb Daimler himself is also gravely mistaken when he surmises: "The worldwide demand for motor vehicles will not exceed one million - if only for lack of available chauffeurs."

Breathlessness
Driving fast is bad for your health and your mind. Medical experts at the dawn of the automobile age are convinced of this. They fear that people will run out of air at speeds of more than 50 km/h.

Counterfeiting in the greenhouse
After Gottlieb Daimler and his family moved into the villa in Taubenheimstrasse in Cannstatt in 1882, he converted his summer house into a workshop. Here he and Wilhelm Maybach wanted to realise their visions. The glass walls are covered with cloth. They work day and night under the strictest secrecy. Even the family and the house servants do not know what is going on in the garden house. Strange hammering and metallic clanking make Daimler's gardener suspicious. He calls the police because he believes there is a forgery there. The surprise is great when the police find only tools and engine parts during a raid.

Hybrid cars - an old invention
Those who think that hybrid cars are a contemporary invention are wrong. An electric car with wheel hub motors, developed by 25-year-old Ferdinand Porsche and Viennese vehicle builder Ludwig Lohner, causes a sensation at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. As the battery did not last long, Ferdinand Porsche fitted the successor model of 1902 with an additional petrol engine to recharge the battery. The Mixte car was born - one of the first hybrid cars in the world.
 

A star over Stuttgart: due to the construction site of the main train station the star has moved temporarily to the Mercedes-Benz Museum
Since 1952, the Mercedes star has rotated incessantly on the tower of Stuttgart's main railway station and stands for Stuttgart's close connection to the automobile.

Completed in 1916, the 56-metre-high station tower burnt out after the turmoil of war. In order to raise the renovation costs, the tower is cleared for advertising purposes and the Mercedes star is mounted. The fact that advertising is allowed to be mounted at all is only because the Mercedes Star is a landmark of the automobile city of Stuttgart. Various models with different sizes, lighting and rotation speeds are tried out. A Plexiglas star with neon tubes of 4.2 metres in diameter is mounted, which rotates around itself twice a minute. Today's star, which can be tilted hydraulically, replaced the old construction in 1972. And so the rotating star has been shining above the city for almost 50 years, greeting every traveller on arrival at the station.

At the end of March 2021, the Mercedes star will temporarily move from the station tower due to the modernisation of the Bonatz Building and will make a guest appearance at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. In 2025, the star will return to the renovated tower at Stuttgart's new main station.