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) EyEvis rEgionAl – grEAT minds And ouTsTAnding dEvEloPmEnTs
Carl Benz – the genius,
that moved the world ...
n the 19th century dates so far back,
that most of us couldn’t have known
a single contemporary witness. still
many developments that started at that
time, today are unthinkable for us to do
without them.
The automobile is without a doubt one
of the most important inventions that coins
the world as we know it, like very few
others.
But 1899 the readers of a Berlin newspaper
voted for the conventional train as the
most important accomplishment. Next to
the postcard and the galoshes, the sewing
machine and the petroleum lamp were
rated high. Only the automobile was not
named. In 1900, 14 years after Carl Benz
filed a patent for his “car with gas drive”,
only about 800 cars were built in Germany
in elaborate handcraft.
Wide landscapes hadn’t seen a car that
moves on his own, without a horse, not
least because there was no net of roads,
gas stations and garages.
Progressive and consequent –
the Benz patent-motor-car
From the beginning of his development
Carl Benz, born on November 25th 1844 in
Karlsruhe, broke – other than the inventor
competitors – with the idea of a carriage
shaped car and concentrated on the
integrated concept of a steel pipe frame,
lying cylinder and flywheel.
1878/79 he had developed a compactionless
two-stroke CI engine, later a light fourstroke
engine. Other elements of motorized
vehicles like the differential drive, the
Ackermann steering, the spark plugs, the
shift of belts as clutch, the carburetor, the
cooler with water and the gear shift were
developed by the genius inventor. 1885 he
built the first gasoline car, a three wheeled
vehicle with Cl-engine und electric ignition
that was driven in the summer of 1885 in
Mannheim according to Bertha Benz.
It had 0,8 hp, high-speed were unhurried
18 km/h.
The first garage in Mannheim
In business Carl Benz had many ups and
downs. He left his first company, founded
1871 and later turned into a corporation,
because of the pressure of the house bank,
because of missing comprehension of
his visions.
1883 he founded the Benz & Cie. Rheinische
Gasmotorenfabrik Mannheim that became
the biggest factory of automobiles in the
world around 1900.
) EyEvis rEgionAl – grEAT minds And ouTsTAnding dEvEloPmEnTs
... and the woman, who
believed in him
The historical drive of
Bertha Benz – the
beginning of the
triumphant procession
of the automobile
But in 1903 Benz already angrily resigned
from this company. In 1926 it finally came
to the merging of Benz & Cie. Rheinische
Gasmotorenfabrik Mannheim and the
Daimler-Benz-Motorengesellschaft, founded
by Gottlieb Daimler, to the Daimler-Benz AG.
the strong woman behind the
successful inventor
Bertha Benz, who always believed in the
success of her husbands’ development, did
the first long-distance drive from Mannheim
to Pforzheim with a distance of about 104
kilometers, where she arrived after 12 hours,
with her sons Eugen and Richard in 1888. The
drive that was done without the knowledge
of Carl Benz, became a real adventure.
Although the road was comparatively even,
Bertha Benz had to stop several times und
her sons had to push the car, because the
small engine was to weak for the hills. Also
the search for cooling water and fuel became
a challenge. The city-pharmacy of Wiesloch
which they passed on the road, became
the first gas station of the world, when the
pharmacist there supplied the travel group
with Ligroin, an at that time common spot
remover as fuel.
The Bertha Benz Memorial Route reminds of
that drive.
Carl Benz later wrote in his life memories:
“Only one person held out in the ship of
life besides me in these days when I went
towards the ruin. It was my wife. Courageous
and bold she hoisted new sails of hope.”
WorTH A visiT
the automobile museum
dr. Carl Benz in Landenburg
The museum provides the visitors with the
flair that might have encircled Carl Benz,
when he built the motorized vehicle in
Mannheim and filed a patent on January
29th 1886. At that time his drives already
often lead him to Landenburg and later the
company C.Benz Söhne emerged here,
todays automobile museum.
Info: www.automuseum-ladenburg.de
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