the US, using the name Daimler-Mercedes for the engine, and also become a member of the Board of Management. In June 1902, after DMG realized that they had already conceded their Daimler trademark to Panhard & Levassor for the whole of France, they decided to name all their cars Mercedes after the engine and began to produce the Mercedes series. The great demand for the car soon had DMG operating at full-capacity. Racing In these early years, car races were used as advertising for their makers. Therefore, both DMG and Benz & Cie., their great rival, put the best of their cars on the track. Daimler cars were able to beat Benz until 1908, when a Benz achieved the land speed record, but in the following years, both brands were equal. First automobile multinational DMG expanded with a subsidiary company in Austria Austro-Daimler International licences French licences Edouard Sarazin began early negotiations to license Gottlieb Daimler's engines in France. After his death, his wife finally succeeded, helped by Émile Levassor and René Panhard (then a timber-machinery manufacturers) selling their first engine in 1887. Armand Peugeot, one of their clients, began fitting vehicles with Panhard & Levassor engines, and acquired Daimler's licence from them. Peugeot focused, successfully, on the German market. Panhard & Levassor designed a complete automobile. Levassor mounted an engine (Daimler's) over the front axle, giving better balance and turning. Marketed in October 1891, it featured rear wheel drive by two side chains, pedal clutch, front radiator, and steering by lever. Historians consider that the automobile was "a German invention, while France expanded it commercially", mainly by publicity from car-racing since in January 1886 Karl Benz was granted the first patent for an automobile he designed and built in 1885. American licences In 1888, Gottlieb Daimler established a cooperation with the German-born piano maker William Steinway in Astoria, Queens, later New York City, to build stationary and marine engines for gas and petroleum, and later on, 1892, also to build cars as full copies of the German design. The engines and cars were produced in Steinway's premises of the "Rikers plant" opposite of Rikers Island which is in use for piano production until nowadays. This business was sold after William Steinway died in 1896. British licences, The Daimler Motor Company Limited In 1890 Hamburg-born Frederick Simms, a consulting engineer and a good personal friend of Gottlieb Daimler returned to