The German Army was very conservative when it came to technical innovations, and remained hesitant to the phenomenon of motor vehicles for quite a long time. So when the war broke out in 1914 only a very few military passenger cars were in use. The mobilisation made larger numbers of impressed civilian types available at short notice. Taking the vast number of different German automobile manufacturers of 1914 into account, the variety of types was enormous: among the ex-civilian cars makes that could be seen on the fronts, sporting a hasty Feldgrau coating, were Adler, Oryx, Bergmann-Métallurgique, Wanderer, NAG, Ley, Lloyd, Beckmann, Protos, Dixi, Benz, Mercedes and Opel. Only a few of these kept up production all through the the war, among them Mercedes.

One of these civilian cars impressed into military service by the German Army was the famous Mercedes 1913 37/95. In its day, this car was regarded as the most powerful production automobile in the world. The 37/95 designation indicated the engine output with the second number indicating the actual horsepower and the 37 indicated the horsepower for taxation purposes in Germany. It had a powerful engine with two blocks of two-cylinders each with three overhead valves per cylinder, and a displacement of 9.6 liter, which made it possible to develop 95 horsepower. Carburetion was by a single Mercedes-designed sliding piston carburetor. A four-speed gearbox, with a gate change shifter mount on the outside of the body, delivered the engine’s power to the dual chain-driven rear axle. The car’s estimated top speed was roughly 110 km/h.

It was used as a staff car by both the German and Turkish Armies.