The Car Turns 125
Jan 28, 2011
Enlarge image A young Carl Benz (© picture-alliance / dpa) One hundred twenty-five years ago, on January 29, 1886, Carl Benz registered patent number 37435 for his invention, an “automobile fueled by gas,” and thus heralded a new age for mobility with the first car.Carl Benz was trained as an engineer at the University of Karlsruhe in southwest Germany. After a few post-graduation missteps, Benz found enough success at his machinery company, Benz & Company Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik, to devote a little time to fiddling with his old hobby of creating a “horseless carriage.” As Benz sat tinkering away at his invention in Mannheim, he was unaware that Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, whose joint firm would eventually merge with Benz's in 1926, were working on similar innovations just about 62 miles away.
Enlarge image Benz atop an early, three-wheeled car. The innovation of a fourth wheel would not come until 1893 (© picture-alliance / dpa) But Benz, in Mannheim, beat them to the patent office with the first of his Motorwagen – basically a very large, motorized tricycle with just 958 cc, 0.8 HP, 600 W and a door-blowing top speed of 16 km/hr (almost ten mph).Afforded the clarity of hindsight, the magnitude of January 29, 1886 is plain, but at the time Carl's invention was not an instant guarantor of continued success. Automobiles needed engineering improvements before becoming viable transportation. This was one reason for early cars' somewhat sluggish start. A second was that, as difficult as it is for today's mind to imagine a world without its ubiquitous auto, the first cars needed some publicizing before their makers could gin up enthusiasm for them.
Luckily, Carl had his wife, Bertha, who deftly solved both problems with one fell swoop.
Enlarge image The first PR-Rep for the auto industry? Bertha Benz, whose famous Mannheim-to-Pforzheim trek both popularized and improved her husband's invention. (© picture-alliance / dpa) Without Carl's knowledge, his wife planned to drive from Mannheim to visit her mother in Pforzheim. This was unprecedented, because until then cars had only been used for very short distances. Her feat was not easy. For the approximately 60-mile journey, Bertha had to map out stops at pharmacies, the only places she could buy fuel, and perform a number of ad hoc repairs, like unclogging a fuel pipe with a hairpin and insulating a wire with a garter. But arrive she did, after a full day on the road.Beyond a nice trip, Bertha's intrepid step would prove a boon to both the mechanics of early auto-making and to the business interests of the Benz company. Beginning with the latter, onlookers marveled at the car that attempted such a voyage, creating instant buzz for a vehicle whose stumbles along the way simultaneously suggested mechanical improvements that would lead to better-engineered iterations of the Benz machines.
Enlarge image A Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell electric car at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit just a few weeks ago. (© picture-alliance / dpa) And of course the Benz line, after all its changes, continues to flourish today after a first record of the “horseless carriage” was put to books in 1886.To commemorate the anniversary, Chancellor Angela Merkel will be the guest of honor at a celebration of Benz's achievement at Mercedes-Benz World in Stuttgart.
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