Mercedes-Benz Classic used Monterey Car Week 2026 to trace 140 years of car making, from an 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen replica to modern AMG performance models. The centrepieces were a 1905 “American Mercedes”, the first Mercedes built in the United States, and two streamlined 1938 cars that show how early the brand took aerodynamics seriously. A privately owned 1956 300 Sc Pinin Farina Coupé took the Mercedes-Benz Star of Excellence Award.
Monterey Car Week ran from 7 to 16 August 2026, and Mercedes-Benz Classic filled the week with cars drawn from the company collection and from private and museum owners. The line-up was built around a single idea: showing how the technical themes of the brand’s early years — high performance, aerodynamics and motorsport — lead directly to the cars it sells today.
The first Mercedes built in America
The 1905 “American Mercedes” is the earliest United States-built car in the brand’s history. It was produced under licence by the Daimler Manufacturing Company in Long Island City, New York, and corresponded to the Mercedes 45 PS, then the top model of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. The car marks an unusually early piece of internationalisation: the Mercedes name had only been introduced in 1901.
More than 120 years later the car appeared at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in the “Early American Speedsters (Pre-World War I)” class, shown outside the competition. The Mercedes-Benz Classic Center in Long Beach, California, prepared it for the outing. Mercedes-Benz cars have taken ten Best of Show awards at Pebble Beach, which the company says is more than any other marque.
Two streamliners from 1938
The Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance was led by the 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540 K Stromlinienwagen, a one-off built on the 540 K (W 29) and used by tyre maker Dunlop as a test car for high-speed runs on the autobahn. Its light-alloy body was developed in the wind tunnel and the underbody was panelled in — unusual attention to drag and high-speed stability for the 1930s. The car travelled to Pebble Beach from the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, where it is currently part of the exhibition “World-Class: 100 Years of Mercedes-Benz”.
At “Legends of the Autobahn”, the Mercedes-Benz 320 Stromlinienlimousine (W 142) took the spotlight. The body style was known at the time as a “Stromlinien-Innenlenker”. Both streamliners were shown alongside the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé, a deliberate pairing of pre-war aerodynamic thinking with a current performance model.
Star of Excellence goes to a Pinin Farina one-off
The Mercedes-Benz Star of Excellence Award went to a privately owned 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300 Sc Pinin Farina Coupé. The one-off combines the running gear of the 300 Sc (W 188) luxury coupé with a body by the Italian design house, and was shown at the Turin Motor Show in 1956 — a period when carmakers and independent coachbuilders worked closely together.
From 1886 to the DTM
The display opened with an authentic replica of the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, Carl Benz’s three-wheeler. A 1961 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster (W 198) represented the link between racing technology and series production; the open car was pushed for by Maximilian E. Hoffman, then the brand’s US importer, and replaced the 300 SL “Gullwing” in 1957. Mercedes-Benz Classic offered this example for sale at Pebble Beach.
Newer performance icons included the 1990 Mercedes-Benz 190 E 2.5-16 Evolution II, a DTM homologation model built in just 502 examples, and the Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 AMG Black Series (C 209), produced in small numbers from 2007 to 2008 and modelled on the official Formula 1 safety car of the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Mercedes-AMG has supplied the Formula 1 safety car for 30 years.
What it means
Alongside the historic cars, Mercedes-Benz USA staged a “Future Classics” display of current Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach and G-Class models, presented in the style of a collector-car auction house and including several MANUFAKTUR personalisation examples. The company recently opened its first US “MANUFAKTUR Made to Measure Hub” at the Mercedes-Benz Studio Los Angeles.
Monterey Car Week 2026 closed on 16 August.
Source: media.mercedes-benz.com