This year marks the 140th birthday of BMW’s iconic rival, Mercedes-Benz. It’s a milestones that forces even die-hard BMW loyalists to pause and acknowledge the scale of history involved. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and How We Got HereThe accepted starting point for Mercedes’ story is 1886, when Karl Benz patented the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, widely regarded as the world’s first true automobile. AMG went from a skunkworks tuner to a factory-backed performance arm, and BMW M had a true adversary. The arms race that followed — M5 versus E55 AMG, M3 versus C63 — defined modern German performance cars and elevated both brands in the process.