What Does the Mercedes-Benz Three-Pointed Star Mean?

In the 1870s Gottlieb Daimler marked his home on a postcard to his wife with a three-pointed star. He wrote that one day it would shine over his triumphant factories. The story is why the star is often called Daimler's own symbol.

The company only needed a trademark later. After the success of the Mercedes cars, Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft still had no mark, and Daimler's sons Paul and Adolf proposed the star. The board accepted it in June 1909 and also registered a four-pointed version. Only the three-pointed star was used, and it appeared on cars in 1910.

The explanation of the three points comes from Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft itself. Gottlieb Daimler wanted small, powerful engines for every setting: on the road, on the water and in the air. Each point of the star is one of those three, so this is a documented company explanation, not a later guess.

The name of the cars has a different origin. Mercedes comes from Mercédès Jellinek, the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who sold Daimler cars and raced them under that name. DMG began naming its cars Mercedes in 1902, which is why the earliest archived mark is a plain oval with that one word.

The star did not always sit alone. In 1916 it was set inside a ring with four small stars. The laurel wreath belongs to the other half of the company: Benz & Cie. registered the letters BENZ inside laurels in August 1909. When the two companies merged on 28 June 1926 to form Daimler-Benz, the new badge placed the star inside those laurels with the words Mercedes and Benz.

The plain ring-and-star symbol is dated by the archive to 1933, and Wikipedia says Daimler-Benz registered it in 1937, so the exact first use is uncertain. The current logo shows the star and ring in polished silver above the serif wordmark.