Mercedes president Juergen Hubbert marked the occasion by cranking up the oldest surviving Mercedes, a 1902 two-seater, and driving it across the stage. Aside from extolling a brand considered synonymous with quality, Hubbert also extended an olive branch to angry investors - a sign that DaimlerChrysler's recent woes are creeping into even the most festive occasions. In recent weeks, DaimlerChrysler has been buffeted by analyst downgrades and shareholder lawsuits as the company's share price hovers 50 per cent below the peak reached shortly after Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler in 1998.

Flanked by a gleaming antique gull-wing roadster and a modern deluxe S-class, Hubbert tried to assure investors that the Chrysler merger and the recent partnership with Japan's Mitsubishi Motors were the right moves, despite financial upheaval at both companies. "I am certain that expanding our worldwide range with Chrysler and Mitsubishi is the right path to follow," Hubbert told a crowd of dignitaries assembled at the company's Mercedes Museum, an airy showcase for all that bears the famed three-pointed star logo: race cars, sedans, buses, trucks and planes.

The first Mercedes rolled out of the workshop on December 22, 1900, after racing enthusiast and auto wholesaler Emil Jellinek ordered 36 of the new vehicles.

He suggested the new brand take the name of his 10-year-old daughter. Since then, the name Mercedes has adorned the grilles of 19 million vehicles and has built a customer base of 6.4 million people today, some of the most loyal in the industry. Early customers included the German Kaiser, who bought his first Mercedes in 1904 and ordered that it run on potato alcohol instead of gasoline to help local farmers. DaimlerChrysler has posted record profits this year, in part because of Mercedes' high profit margins. But those figures were overshadowed in the third quarter by a $512 million loss at Chrysler. Hubbert said DaimlerChrysler would succeed in turning the Chrysler division around, just as Daimler-Benz succeeded in resuscitating the Mercedes brand during its slump of the early 1990s.

"In 1995, our image was one of a hippopotamus," Hubbert said. "Now it is more one of a dolphin, a fast, intelligent and graceful animal." Still, Fritz B Busch, a guest historian brought in to regale the crowd with tidbits of Mercedes legend, took a cheap shot at its merger partner, ending his speech with veiled reference to the bulletproof Popemobile specially built by Mercedes. Greeted with raucous laughter, Busch concluded: "As long as the Pope doesn't drive a Chrysler, the world will still be in order."