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The '''Benz Patent-Motorwagen''' ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885 by the German [[Carl Benz]], is widely regarded as the world's first practical [[automobile]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parissien |first=Steven |url=http://archive.org/details/lifeofautomobile0000pari_v0r8 |title=The life of the automobile : the complete history of the motor car |date=2014 |publisher=New York, N.Y. : Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-1-250-04063-3 |pages=3-5}}</ref> a self-propelled vehicle for carrying people, and first car put into series production.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dpma.de/service/klassifikationen/ipc/ipcprojekt/einekurzegeschichtedesautomobils/geburtstagdesautos/index.html |title=Der Streit um den "Geburtstag" des modernen Automobils |language=de |trans-title=The fight over the birth of the modern automobile |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2014-12-22 |publisher=German Patent and Trade Mark Office |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102082130/https://www.dpma.de/service/klassifikationen/ipc/ipcprojekt/einekurzegeschichtedesautomobils/geburtstagdesautos/index.html |archive-date=2017-01-02 |access-date=<!--Not stated--> }}</ref> It was patented and unveiled in 1886. The original cost of the vehicle in 1886 was 600 [[German gold mark|imperial German marks]],<ref>{{Cite news|last=Neil|first=Dan|date=2006-06-21|title=Before the Rumble Seat|language=en-US|website=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/news/la-hy-125mbz21jun21-story.html|url-access=subscription|access-date=2020-05-02}}</ref> approximately 150 US dollars ({{Inflation|US|150|1885|fmt=eq}}).
The '''Benz Patent-Motorwagen''' ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885 by the German [[Carl Benz]], is widely regarded as the world's first practical modern [[automobile]],<ref name="Parissien">{{Cite book |last=Parissien |first=Steven |url=http://archive.org/details/lifeofautomobile0000pari_v0r8 |title=The life of the automobile : the complete history of the motor car |date=2014 |publisher=New York, N.Y. : Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-1-250-04063-3 |pages=2–5}}</ref> {{efn|Before [[Carl Benz]] patented his Motorwagen in 1886, several inventors were working on [[Steam car|automobiles powered by steam engines]]; in 1769, [[Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot]] built the first steam-propelled vehicle.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolas-Joseph-Cugnot |access-date=22 October 2022 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> During the 1870s, [[Amédée Bollée|Bollée]] created several steam vehicles which could carry passengers for road trips.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lavergne |first=Gérard |title=The Automobile: Its Construction and Management |publisher=Cassell |year=1902 |pages=17}}</ref> Steam cars have, however, been characterized by various authors as "distinctly uncommercial",<ref name="Parissien" /> "unsafe",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frey |first=Carl Benedikt |title=The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2020 |isbn=9780691210797 |pages=166}}</ref> and "difficult to manage".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bailey |first=Diane |title=How the Automobile Changed History |publisher=ABDO |year=2015 |isbn=9781629697666 |pages=28}}</ref> According to automotive historian [[G. N. Georgano]], earlier steam vehicle experiments and innovations such as the stationary [[Otto engine]] helped make the invention of the Benz Motorwagen possible, which he labelled as "the first motorcar" due to its commercial production.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Georgano |first=G. N. |title=Cars, 1886–1930 |publisher=Beekman House |year=1985 |isbn=9780517480731 |pages=9, 16}}</ref> The company [[Mercedes-Benz]] also acknowledge there were forerunners to the Motorwagen, but also state that Benz was the first to develop "a "horseless carriage" into a product for everyday use, which he then brought to market and as a result made his idea useful for the entire world".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Forerunners to the automobile |url=https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/tradition/company-history/forerunners-to-the-automobile.html |access-date=22 October 2022 |publisher=Mercedes-Benz Group}}</ref>}} a self-propelled vehicle for carrying people, and first car put into series production.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dpma.de/service/klassifikationen/ipc/ipcprojekt/einekurzegeschichtedesautomobils/geburtstagdesautos/index.html |title=Der Streit um den "Geburtstag" des modernen Automobils |language=de |trans-title=The fight over the birth of the modern automobile |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2014-12-22 |publisher=German Patent and Trade Mark Office |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102082130/https://www.dpma.de/service/klassifikationen/ipc/ipcprojekt/einekurzegeschichtedesautomobils/geburtstagdesautos/index.html |archive-date=2017-01-02 |access-date=<!--Not stated--> }}</ref> It was patented and unveiled in 1886. The original cost of the vehicle in 1886 was 600 [[German gold mark|imperial German marks]],<ref>{{Cite news|last=Neil|first=Dan|date=2006-06-21|title=Before the Rumble Seat|language=en-US|website=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/news/la-hy-125mbz21jun21-story.html|url-access=subscription|access-date=2020-05-02}}</ref> approximately 150 US dollars ({{Inflation|US|150|1885|fmt=eq}}).


Karl's wife Bertha demonstrated its feasibility in a trip from [[Mannheim]] to [[Pforzheim]] in August 1888, shortly before it became the first commercially available automobile in history in the late summer of 1888.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://scihi.org/carl-benz-automobile/ | title=Carl Benz and the Invention of the Automobile | date=29 January 2018 }}</ref>
Karl's wife Bertha demonstrated its feasibility in a trip from [[Mannheim]] to [[Pforzheim]] in August 1888, shortly before it became the first commercially available automobile in history in the late summer of 1888.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://scihi.org/carl-benz-automobile/ | title=Carl Benz and the Invention of the Automobile | date=29 January 2018 }}</ref>

Due to the creation of the Patent-Motorwagen, Benz has been hailed as the inventor and father of the car.<ref name="Parissien" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=von Fersen |first=Olaf |title=Ein Jahrhundert Automobiltechnik: Personenwagen |publisher=Springer-Verlag |year=2013 |isbn=9783642957727 |pages=10 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Derry |first=Thomas Kingston |title=A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900 |last2=Williams |first2=Trevor Illtyd |publisher=Courier Corporation |year=1960 |isbn=9780486274720 |pages=393}}</ref>


==Development and specifications==
==Development and specifications==
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== Notes ==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 20:24, 22 October 2022

Benz Patent-Motorwagen
Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 1
Overview
ManufacturerRheinische Gasmotorenfabrik Benz & Cie.
(known today as Mercedes-Benz)
Production1886–1893
Powertrain
Engine1.0L (954cc) single cylinder engine 2⁄3hp (Ligroin)
Chronology
SuccessorBenz Velo

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885 by the German Carl Benz, is widely regarded as the world's first practical modern automobile,[1] [a] a self-propelled vehicle for carrying people, and first car put into series production.[8] It was patented and unveiled in 1886. The original cost of the vehicle in 1886 was 600 imperial German marks,[9] approximately 150 US dollars (equivalent to $5,087 in 2023).

Karl's wife Bertha demonstrated its feasibility in a trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in August 1888, shortly before it became the first commercially available automobile in history in the late summer of 1888.[10]

Due to the creation of the Patent-Motorwagen, Benz has been hailed as the inventor and father of the car.[1][11][12]

Development and specifications

After developing a successful gasoline-powered two-stroke piston engine in 1873, Benz focused on developing a motorized vehicle while maintaining a career as a designer and manufacturer of stationary engines and their associated parts.

Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 1

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen was a motor tricycle with a rear-mounted engine. The vehicle contained many new inventions. It was constructed of steel tubing with woodwork panels. The steel-spoked wheels and solid rubber tires were Benz's own design. Steering was by way of a toothed rack that pivoted the unsprung front wheel. Fully elliptic springs were used at the back along with a beam axle and chain drive on both sides. A simple belt system served as a single-speed transmission, varying torque between an open disc and drive disc.

The first Motorwagen used the Benz 954 cc (58.2 cu in) single-cylinder four-stroke engine with trembler coil ignition.[13] This new engine produced 500 watts (2⁄3 hp) at 250 rpm in the Patent-Motorwagen, although later tests by the University of Mannheim showed it to be capable of 670 W (0.9 hp) at 400 rpm. It was an extremely light engine for the time, weighing about 100 kg (220 lb). Although its open crankcase and drip oiling system would be alien to a modern mechanic, its use of a pushrod-operated poppet valve for exhaust would be quite familiar. A large horizontal flywheel stabilized the single-cylinder engine's power output. An evaporative carburettor was controlled by a sleeve valve to regulate power and engine speed. The first model of the Motorwagen had not been built with a carburettor, rather a basin of fuel soaked fibers that supplied fuel to the cylinder by evaporation.

The vehicle was awarded the German patent number 37435, for which Karl Benz applied on 29 January 1886. Following official procedures, the date of the application became the patent date for the invention once the patent was granted, which occurred in November of that year. Benz unveiled his invention to the public on 3 July 1886, on the Ringstrasse in Mannheim.

Benz later made more models of the Motorwagen: model number 2 had 1.1 kW (1.5 hp) engine, and model number 3 had 1.5 kW (2 hp) engine, allowing the vehicle to reach a maximum speed of approximately 16 km/h (10 mph). The chassis was improved in 1887 with the introduction of wooden-spoke wheels, a fuel tank, and a manual leather shoe brake on the rear wheels.

About 25 Patent-Motorwagen were built between 1886 and 1893.

Bertha Benz (1849–1944)
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 3 of 1888, used by Bertha Benz for the first long-distance journey by automobile (106 km (66 mi) long)

Bertha Benz's trip

Main article: Bertha Benz § First cross-country automobile journey

Bertha Benz, Karl's wife, whose dowry financed the development of the Patent-Motorwagen,[14] was aware of the need for publicity. She took the Patent-Motorwagen No. 3 and drove it on the first long-distance internal combustion automobile road trip to demonstrate its feasibility. That trip occurred in early August 1888, when she took her sons Eugen and Richard, fifteen and fourteen years old, respectively, on a ride from Mannheim through Heidelberg, and Wiesloch, to her maternal hometown of Pforzheim.[15]

Official signpost of Bertha Benz Memorial Route

In Germany, a parade of antique automobiles celebrates this historic trip of Bertha Benz every two years. On February 25, 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route,[16] following the route of Benz's journey, was officially approved as a Tourist or Scenic Route by the German authorities as a route of industrial heritage of mankind. The 194 km (121 mi) of signposted route leads from Mannheim via Heidelberg to Pforzheim (Black Forest) and back.

In media

Working replica of the 1885 Benz Motorwagen in Frankfurt, 2007

The car can be driven in the video game Gran Turismo 4 and Android video game Driving Legends: The Car Story. It was also driven by Sherlock Holmes's sister Enola in the film Enola Holmes.

See also

Early developments essential to the development of automobiles

Car and car engine designers, chronologically by first vehicle/engine built

  • Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725–1804), French inventor of the world's first automobile, a 1769–1770 steam-fuelled vehicle
  • Étienne Lenoir, developer of the first atmospheric gaseous fueled internal combustion engine and automobile (1860–1863), pioneer of electroplating
  • Nicolaus Otto, developer of the first successful compressed charge gaseous fueled internal combustion engine (1860s–70s)
  • Siegfried Marcus, developed petrol-powered, internal combustion engine vehicles (1864? 1870? 1888)
  • Wilhelm Maybach, designed engines starting in the 1870s–80s; first motorbike (1885), second internal combustion car (1889)
  • Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer, pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development (1870s and on)

Notes

  1. ^ Before Carl Benz patented his Motorwagen in 1886, several inventors were working on automobiles powered by steam engines; in 1769, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first steam-propelled vehicle.[2] During the 1870s, Bollée created several steam vehicles which could carry passengers for road trips.[3] Steam cars have, however, been characterized by various authors as "distinctly uncommercial",[1] "unsafe",[4] and "difficult to manage".[5] According to automotive historian G. N. Georgano, earlier steam vehicle experiments and innovations such as the stationary Otto engine helped make the invention of the Benz Motorwagen possible, which he labelled as "the first motorcar" due to its commercial production.[6] The company Mercedes-Benz also acknowledge there were forerunners to the Motorwagen, but also state that Benz was the first to develop "a "horseless carriage" into a product for everyday use, which he then brought to market and as a result made his idea useful for the entire world".[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c Parissien, Steven (2014). The life of the automobile : the complete history of the motor car. Internet Archive. New York, N.Y. : Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press. pp. 2–5. ISBN 978-1-250-04063-3.
  2. ^ "Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  3. ^ Lavergne, Gérard (1902). The Automobile: Its Construction and Management. Cassell. p. 17.
  4. ^ Frey, Carl Benedikt (2020). The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation. Princeton University Press. p. 166. ISBN 9780691210797.
  5. ^ Bailey, Diane (2015). How the Automobile Changed History. ABDO. p. 28. ISBN 9781629697666.
  6. ^ Georgano, G. N. (1985). Cars, 1886–1930. Beekman House. pp. 9, 16. ISBN 9780517480731.
  7. ^ "Forerunners to the automobile". Mercedes-Benz Group. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  8. ^ "Der Streit um den "Geburtstag" des modernen Automobils" [The fight over the birth of the modern automobile] (in German). German Patent and Trade Mark Office. 2014-12-22. Archived from the original on 2017-01-02.
  9. ^ Neil, Dan (2006-06-21). "Before the Rumble Seat". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  10. ^ "Carl Benz and the Invention of the Automobile". 29 January 2018.
  11. ^ von Fersen, Olaf (2013). Ein Jahrhundert Automobiltechnik: Personenwagen (in German). Springer-Verlag. p. 10. ISBN 9783642957727.
  12. ^ Derry, Thomas Kingston; Williams, Trevor Illtyd (1960). A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900. Courier Corporation. p. 393. ISBN 9780486274720.
  13. ^ "The birth of the automobile". Daimler AG. Archived from the original on 21 November 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
  14. ^ "Frauen in der Geschichte des Rechts — Von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zum Gegenwart", Ute Gerhard e.a., Beck'se Verlagsbuchhandlung, München 1997, ISBN 3-406-42866-5, Pag 464
  15. ^ MercedesForum (8 May 2011). "Making of 'Carl & Bertha' (Film)". Archived from the original on 2021-12-14 – via YouTube.
  16. ^ Bertha Benz Memorial Route (German-government-approved non-profit official site)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Benz Patent Motorwagen.
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