Jim says
Just as Mercedes was named for Mercedes Jellinek, the daughter of the
principal investor.
James Burke, in his Connections series says that Mercedes was named after
Mercedes Jellinek. According to his story, Damlier-Benz at the time, like
all the other guys, used benzene as a fuel and they vaporized it by keeping
a tray full of it over the exhaust. To start the car, they had a pilot fire
under the tray to get it warm enough to vaporise.
This resulted in many fires and was generally bad for business. Jellinek
invented a new method to vaporize the fuel, which he made from a perfume
atomizer. He presented it to Damlier-Benz and they named the model car that
made use of it after his daughter.
I don't know when he became an investor in the company.
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