Benz cashes in on BMW's limelight?

Achieving a centenary is quite a milestone in any company's history – other than in the eyes of a rival with 130 years of history behind it.

Allowing the Mercedes-Benz Museum the benefit of the doubt, it was very generous to offer BMW employees free admission to the museum between March 8 and 13, to mark the 100th anniversary of BMW. The Benz Museum even offered free parking to BMW employees turning up in BMWs.

And the first 50 BMW employees to enter the museum are welcome to some Swabian speciality cooked up by the in-house restaurant – double kidneys en brochette perhaps?

"We warmly congratulate the globally renowned company BMW on its anniversary and invite all employees of BMW AG to discover the complete history of the automobile at the Mercedes-Benz Museum," said Ralf Glaser, Head of Press and Marketing at Mercedes-Benz Classic.

"The unique exhibition at our museum, which opened at its new location ten years ago, takes visitors throughout the history of the automobile from its earliest beginnings – always in the context of the given historical and cultural background and contemporary innovative developments."

It's not so very unusual for BMWs to be parked outside the Benz museum apparently. During the summer months the museum holds classic car meets under the title of 'Cars & Coffee', and these events, now in their tenth year, often feature BMWs and other makes.

The Benz press release made little mention of the role played in automotive history by BMW specifically. But the press release did note that the co-founders of Mercedes-Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, actually invented the modern motor car... and about 30 years prior to the establishment of BMW.

Maybe Mercedes-Benz has found a clever way of stealing some limelight from BMW, or perhaps the brand is simply paying tribute to a fellow traveller from the automotive industry, as a token of goodwill.

We like to think it's the latter.

Update, March 10, 2016: 

And we're still none the wiser...