August 12, 1888 – Mannheim, Germany: In the early morning, Bertha Benz and her two sons, Eugen (15) and Richard (13), quietly pushed the motorwagen out of the workshop and only started it when a safe distance from the house. Bertha left a note on the kitchen table for her husband, Karl, who was still asleep. She was on her way to Pforzheim to visit her mother. When Karl later noticed that the motorwagen was missing, he realized Bertha wasn’t traveling by train.
On the day they met, 25-year-old Karl Benz, a mechanical engineering graduate of Karlsruhe Polytechnical School, shared his dream with 20-year-old Bertha Ringer. Someday he planned to build a horseless carriage. She was fascinated by the idea and by the handsome engineer. That afternoon, she told him, “I believe a horseless carriage is possible and that you are the man to do it.” Even though her mother loved horses and thought Karl’s idea was preposterous, Bertha never wavered from her belief in Karl and his dream.
Their courtship blossomed. While they were engaged, Karl, who owned a mechanical fabrication shop that made components for carriages, farming equipment, and tools for cobblers, got in a dispute with his business partner and landed in financial trouble. Bertha used her inheritance from her parents to pay off Karl’s debt.
In 1872, they married and moved into two small rooms above Karl’s workshop. Bertha raised five children, worked in the shop with Karl after the children were in bed, and provided her husband a steady stream of encouragement. She also saved every penny for the Benz Company.
Bertha and Karl worked years on his invention. After many failed attempts, they finished the first horseless carriage in December 1885. A year later, Karl received a patent for the ‘Benz motorwagen with a gas engine.’
Karl rode around Mannheim in his horseless carriage while critics laughed at the three-wheeled contraption. They questioned the machine’s reliability and its ability to travel long distances. Most believed it would never replace the horse and carriage as reliable transportation. Bertha realized the invention needed to be demonstrated to the public. She decided to take the vehicle on a lengthy test drive without telling her husband.
Bertha and the boys left Mannheim at 6 am, heading for her hometown 60 miles away. The 2.5 horsepower, single-cylinder benzine-burning engine popped, snorted, and wheezed its way through the countryside. On the downhills, the engine produced speeds of up to 10 miles per hour. The boys pushed the vehicle up the steeper hills.
Thirty-nine-year-old Bertha served as driver and chief mechanic. On three occasions, she stopped at village pharmacies to buy benzine, a cleaning solvent, to fill the small fuel tank. She used water from ditches to refill the water tank to keep the engine cool. Once, she used a pin from her hat to clean a clogged fuel line and later fixed an ignition problem using her garter as an insulator.
A few bystanders along the way were amazed by the spectacle. Still, most were terrified and ran for cover, believing the strange vehicle was an instrument of the devil, being driven by a woman, no less. Bertha arrived in Pforzheim just after dark. The trip had taken 12 hours. She telegrammed Karl that they had successfully reached Pforzheim without incident. Two days later, Bertha returned to Mannheim by a different route.
She accomplished what she set out to do. The critics were silenced, and everyone was talking about Karl’s motorwagen. A month after Bertha’s daring adventure, Karl exhibited his motorwagen at the Power and Machinery Exhibition in Munich, where it won a gold medal for innovation and attracted the attention of dozens of newspapers.
Orders for the world’s first automobile poured in, and the Benz auto company was on its way. Three decades later, in 1926, the Benz Company merged with Gottlieb Daimler to form Daimler-Benz and became the manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz automobiles.
Thanks to Bertha’s unshakeable faith in her husband’s invention, Karl worked through repeated setbacks to realize his dream of a horseless carriage. “Only one person remained with me in the small ship of life when it seemed destined to sink, my wife Bertha,” said Karl. “She was more daring than I. Bravely and resolutely, she set the new sails of hope.” Bertha Benz died in May 1944, two days after her 95th birthday. Today, motorists can travel the 120-mile-long Bertha Benz Memorial Route, which follows the path of her historic road trip.
Great story Pete.