Based on the literary, documentary and patent sources, the paper attempts to understand the history of the creation of the first Mercedes car and to determine whether its design was “revolutionary” and influenced further development of the automotive industry. The first Mercedes car was manufactured by a German company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) to a design by an Austrian businessman Emil Jellinek. Wilhelm Maybach, a German engineer and the then Technical Director of DMG, supervised the construction of the car. It is established that the Mercedes car design and engine had not been innovative. They were developed based on the already known designs and inventions, including those of engineer B. G. Loutzky (Loutzkoy, Lutskii) who at the time worked for DMG. The main elements of the Mercedes car design and engine – stamped-steel frame, accelerator foot pedal, inclined steering wheel, honeycomb radiator, four-cylinder in-line vertical engine, mechanically controlled intake valves, low-voltage magneto ignition, and T-shaped cylinder head – had been already known and used by Panhard et Levassor and Motorfahrzeug- und Motorenfabrik Berlin. It is shown that, besides Jellinek and Maybach, other DMG engineers, particularly Brauner and Link, also participated in creating the first Mercedes car