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" Tufts of white clouds floated lazily over Paris one warm summer morning in 1894. Cable-operated elevators carried the day&amp;#039;s first passengers up to the observation deck of the five-year-old Eiffel Tower while an excited crowd gathered in Porte Maillot, just on the outskirts of the city, around a congregation of twenty-one motorcars. These onlookers were about to witness the very first auto race in recorded history. While it&amp;#039;s widely known that first motorcar was created by Carl Benz in 1886\u2014a remarkable three-wheeled vehicle he called the &amp;quot;motorwagen&amp;quot;\u2014it isn&amp;#039;t as well known that a Daimler-powered car belonging to Albert Lema\u00EEtre was the first across the finish line that Paris morning. 119 years later, the spirit of Lema\u00EEtre&amp;#039;s 3HP race winner is alive and well.Its modern descendants, built by Mercedes-Benz, now create one hundred times the power from their motors and feature a slew of space-age technologies that would have been unimaginable back then:from radar and stereoscopic cameras, to a state-of-the-art all wheel drive system and onboard satellite navigation. (Lema\u00EEtre might have found the latter handy as he negotiated the dirt track roads between Paris and Rouen.) In the span of those 119 years, Mercedes-Benz pioneered countless innovations and set the pace in the creation of industry standards. Direct fuel injection is an example of one of many Mercedes achievements. Now fitted to all contemporary Mercedes models, it was a breakthrough in 1954 with the 300SL Gullwing\u2212easily one of the most famous and beautiful cars of the 20th century. Modern direct injection systems are computer-controlled and alter the amount of fuel injected between each cycle of the engine\u2014a far cry from the spray-and-pray technique used by the more traditional carburetor. The ubiquitous anti-lock braking system (ABS) is another automotive masterpiece that is too often taken for granted; though it was revolutionary when it was invented in 1978 by the boffins over at Mercedes-Benz. Assisting a driver with maintaining control of the vehicle while braking, ABS prevents tire lock-up and allows the wheels of the vehicle to retain tractive contact with the road&amp;#039;s surface. This groundbreaking system has done more to prevent automotive accidents than any other single automotive safety innovation, which makes it no surprise that it is mandated on all new vehicles today. Defined by a history of innovation, Mercedes-Benz continues to be an icon of evolution. Paying homage to its past and driving full steam ahead into the future, the new 2014 E-Class will be forever genealogically linked to the race-winning Daimler that gave Mercedes its prestigious beginnings.  This post is sponsored by Mercedes-Benz as part ofThe Road Ahead, an ongoing series of reports on where we&amp;#039;ve been, where we are, and where we&amp;#039;re headed as it pertains to cars, motorsports, and the culture surrounding it all. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a4579/the-road-ahead-the-evolution-of-an-icon/>