By Don Hammonds

Do you love cars?

Well, you might want to dash off an e-mail, send a birthday card, or dash off to your local Mercedes-Benz dealership and say a heartfelt thank you.

That’s because the venerable luxury car manufacturer built the very first automobile, and we all know what came next for us car lovers–an important source of joy, personal freedom, and not a small amount of big fun, too.

As a news release from Mercedes says, ” It was on 29 …