In 1890, after parting ways with Deutz AG, Gottleib Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach established their own firm, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt, Germany. Among the leading innovators at the dawn of motoring, DMG revolutionized the design and manufacture of the internal combustion engine, inventing the world’s first four-stroke petrol engine and float-feed carburetor.

Despite their groundbreaking developments, Daimler and Maybach initially attracted little interest for their products in Germany. In the late 1800s, Paris was the cradle of the burgeoning automotive industry, and so DMG found its earliest success selling manufacturing rights for its V-twin engine to the leading French manufacturers of the day – Panhard et Levassor and Peugeot.

In 1898, the enterprising Viennese-born Consul General for Austria-Hungary, Emil Jellinek, established himself as the official agent for DMG in Nice, France, selling new Phoenix Daimler motor cars to wealthy residents of the French Riviera – at the time, the world’s second-largest market after Paris for automobiles.

While they were large, powerful, and relatively fast, the Phoenix Daimlers were ungainly in appearance and challenging to operate. Frustrated by their aesthetic and mechanical compromises, Jellinek demanded that DMG develop

an all-new motorcar – “comparable to no other” – and financed the project, agreeing to buy the first 36 examples built. He planned to name these new automobiles after his young daughter – Mercédès – believing it would hold greater international appeal, particularly in France, where memories of the Franco-Prussian War had left lingering resentment toward the Germans.

Unveiled in December 1900, the striking new DMG-built Mercedes 35 HP, designed by Wilhelm Maybach, established a pattern that would be followed for decades. Widely regarded as the first truly modern motorcar, the 35 HP Mercedes boasted several revolutionary features: a low, pressed-steel chassis, honeycomb radiator, low-tension ignition, scroll clutch, water-cooled drum brakes, and an H-pattern, four-speed gearbox with dual-chain drive.

After witnessing the dominating performance of the new Mercedes cars at the Nice Speed Week in Spring 1901, Paul Meyan, General Secretary of the Automobile Club de France, declared: “We have entered the Mercedes era.”

The following year, DMG returned to Nice with the improved Mercedes- Simplex 40 HP, a refined and simplified version of the original 35 HP model. As a result of their extraordinary performance, quality construction, and ease of use, Mercedes quickly became the car du jour among well-heeled motoring enthusiasts in France, England, and the US, building the marque’s international reputation.

Developed throughout 1902 and debuted in 1903, the Mercedes-Simplex 60 HP followed in the innovative footsteps of its forebears while offering an entirely new standard of performance. At the heart of the new 60 HP model was a high-output, four-cylinder engine, which featured a 140 mm bore and 150 mm stroke, resulting in a 9.25-liter displacement. Although it was significantly larger than its predecessors, the key to the success of the “Sixty” lay in the overhead design of its intake valves. This F-head layout, as it is now known, gave the 60 HP Mercedes the greatest volumetric efficiency of any engine of its day.

Capable of 80 mph flat-out and easy to handle, thanks to its relatively long wheelbase and low center of gravity, the new Mercedes-Simplex 60 HP was the first true dual-purpose automobile – a powerful, reliable touring car that could also win races. While most race cars of the era were purpose-built monsters with virtually no relation to production cars sold to the public, the Sixty could be transformed into a competitive racing machine by removing its rear seats and fenders and fitting a lightweight two-seat body.

Between 1903 and 1905, the Mercedes-Simplex 60 HP convincingly cemented its status as the finest, fastest production car in the world, winning countless speed trials, hill climbs, and circuit races. The most famous display of its abilities took place in July 1903 at the Gordon Bennett Cup in Ireland, where Camille Jenatzy drove a standard, customer-supplied Sixty to an outright win, averaging an astonishing 49.2 mph over 327.5 miles of public roads.

All told, the DMG works in Cannstatt built 102 examples of the Mercedes- Simplex 60 HP between late 1902 and 1905. Through Emil Jellinek in Nice and Charles Lehmann’s C.L. Charley dealership in Paris, these magnificent automobiles were sold to an elite clientele that included American millionaires William K. Vanderbilt and Clarence Gray Dinsmore, as well as aristocratic European enthusiasts such as Baron de Caters, Baron Henri de Rothschild, and Count Zborowski.

Among the lucky few who could both admire and afford a new Mercedes Sixty was British publishing magnate Alfred C.W. Harmsworth.

Born in Ireland in 1865, Mr. Harmsworth is one of the most important figures in the history of modern media. After beginning his career as a freelance journalist, Harmsworth established his first newspaper, Answers to Correspondents, in 1888. With an innate sense for public interest and demand, Mr. Harmsworth started several inexpensive journals and revived moribund newspapers, integrating them into what would eventually become the largest periodical publishing company in the world: Amalgamated Press.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Mr. Harmsworth began publishing the London Daily Mail, the Sunday Dispatch, and The Daily Mirror, setting new records for circulation and significantly enhancing his political reach. Consequently, Mr. Harmsworth was created a Baronet in 1904 and, at the request of King Edward VII, was raised to the peerage as Baron Northcliffe in 1905.

By the outbreak of WWI, Mr. Harmsworth’s publishing empire controlled much of the newspaper circulation in Britain and held a tremendous influence over both “the classes and the masses” in an era before radio and television. Through his newspapers, he championed charitable causes and promoted his own passions, such as exploratory expeditions and modern technology, including advances in aviation. Above all, however, Mr. Harmsworth was an early and proselytizing devotee of the motorcar.

In 1900, when the motorcar was still in its infancy, he was instrumental in supporting the Royal Automobile Club’s 1,000 Miles Trial. The RAC’s secretary, Claude Johnson, wrote of Harmsworth: “He at once put his purse at the club’s disposal and he gave the scheme the utmost possible support in his papers at a time when other journals were scoffing at the automobile as being a disagreeable and unnecessary plaything of a few cranks.”

In 1902, Mr. Harmsworth edited the book Motors And Motor-Driving, which contained a collection of essays on various aspects of motoring. Contributors were a veritable “who’s who” of early automobile enthusiasts, such as John Scott-Montagu, Charles S. Rolls, R.J. McRedy, S.F. Edge, and Charles Jarrott. Included was Mr. Harmsworth’s own article, “The Choice of a Motor,” extolling his opinions on various automobiles as well as practical advice on ownership issues that remain relevant today including touring, maintenance, and acquisitions.

Early in this piece, Mr. Harmsworth makes his preference clear: “To-day my own experience teaches me that in the year 1902 a good petrol engine is infinitely the best for all-around work. That is to say, if one intends to own a single motor-car only, and desires occasionally to travel for long journeys there can in my judgement be no doubt that a petrol engine, with a Daimler or some similar type of motor, is the wisest purchase.”

On June 14, 1902, Harper’s Weekly published the article, “Mr. Alfred Harmsworth on the Choice of an Automobile,” which featured excerpts from Motors And Motor-Driving as well as a briefing of its author’s credentials:

"Mr. Harmsworth, in the midst of his enormous business duties, which involve the running of nearly twoscore periodicals, has from the first introduction of automobiles found time to tour over most of England and France and large parts of Italy and Germany. He already owns something like fifteen automobiles, and though he modestly writes that his experience is not nearly so extensive as certain veteran chauffeurs, the fact is that with his many different carriages and his varied uses of them he is perhaps the best authority on the subject, from the private owner’s point of view. He is one of the four men who own the most recent Mercedes machines of 60 horse-power with a capacity of eighty miles an hour in speed. He has touring-coaches, racing-machines, town cabs, station omnibuses, tricycles, and automobiles that he has had built after his own designs for various purposes and his stable is the most complete private motor-house in England."

Indeed, Mr. Harmsworth maintained a fantastic collection of automobiles at Sutton Place, the Tudor mansion where he resided between 1899 and 1917. There, his coach houses contained a selection of the finest cars of the day. As early as 1902, the garage included several Gardner-Serpollet steam cars, a Locomobile, a Daimler, single-cylinder Renault, 12 hp Panhard, and a Mercedes-Simplex 40 HP, believed to be the first Mercedes car sold in England.

As one of the earliest and most devoted patrons of the Mercedes marque, it was only natural that Alfred Harmsworth was among the first to place an order for the latest 60 HP machine. His Sixty, the car presented here, was among the Mercedes that debuted at the annual Nice Speed Week on the French Riviera.

After being prepared in garages be