Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler

Born: 1834 | Died: 1900

Entrepreneur

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was born to a baker Johannes Daeumler and his wife Frederika in Schorndorf near Stuttgart in southwestern Germany. He expressed an interest in engineering from an early age and from 1857 to 1859 he studied engineering at the Stuttgart Polytechnic Institute.

In 1865, Daimler became the director of a factory in Wuerttemberg. There he met Wilhelm Maybach, who became his lifelong friend and business partner. In 1872, Daimler became technical director in the company of Nikolaus A. Otto who invented the four-stroke internal-combustion engine. In 1882, Daimler and Maybach left the firm to start their own engine-building shop. Three years later, they patented one of the first successful high-speed internal-combustion engines and developed a carburetor that made the use of gasoline as fuel possible. They used their gasoline engines on a bicycle, which was perhaps the first motorcycle in the world.

In 1890, the partners founded the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG), and in 1899 the first Mercedes car was built. Starting in 1910, the three-pointed star appeared on every car produced. It was designed by Gottlieb Daimler, to show the ability of his motors for land, air, and sea use. In 1926, DMG merged with Benz & Cie and became Daimler-Benz AG.

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