Karl Benz and the creation of the first automobile

A mechanical chariot without animal traction: this was the dream of many engineers and it came true, but little by little. From the first steam engines to combustion engines, wheels with pneumatic tires, suspension... It is not easy to mark a precise moment in history to decide from which moment what we understand today by automobile exists. But there is no doubt that Benz and his Volkswagen project had a great deal to do with that technological conquest.

A German engineer

Karl Benz was born on November 25, 1844 in Pfaffenrot. The son of a blacksmith, he was fascinated by railroads from an early age. Orphaned at the age of two, his mother, Josephine Benz, made a commendable effort to ensure him an excellent education.

Intelligent, dedicated and highly gifted in the exact sciences, Karl earned an engineering degree at the Karlsruhe Polytechnikum at the age of 19. Benz began working for a railroad company in Karlsruhe. However, the twelve-hour working day, the constant darkness and the dampness of the workshops eventually became depressing for him, so he quit. Later, an uncertain career and the death of his mother in March 1870 deeply discouraged him.

But his luck changed a few months later, when he met his future wife, Bertha Ringer, a determined 20-year-old daughter of a builder. After a brief stay in Vienna, where he searched unsuccessfully for a fulfilling job, Benz returned to Mannheim and entered into partnership with August Ritter. In August 1871, Benz and Ritter bought a small property in the city center and established themselves as suppliers of mechanical equipment. But liquidity problems soon arose, aggravated by Ritter's lack of interest, which soon fizzled out.

It was Bertha who saved the situation, using her dowry money to pay Ritter's share, who left the company. The following year, Karl and Bertha married. These were not good times: the financial panic that was shaking Vienna at the time was affecting small German companies. Debts nearly put Benz on trial, so he had to bail himself out by handing over his company's assets to the bank with which he had taken out the mortgage.

The business needed a quality product, something that would sell. Benz set out to build a two-stroke, gas-powered engine. After a year of work, he succeeded in making his creation work properly on New Year's Eve 1879, with a sound that, in his own words, “no magic flute could match.”

Agreements and disagreements

Financial hardship prevented Benz from mass producing the engine until he met photographer Emil Bühler, who offered to cover the manufacturing costs. Otto Schmuck, a local businessman, joined the partnership. Together they founded a company for the distribution of Benz engines, although the bank that had previously lent money to the engineer demanded a stake in the venture before extending further funds.

Thus, in October 1882, Gasmotorenfabrik Mannheim was born, intended for the manufacture of engines for industrial use. The board of directors suggested making some changes to the basic design of the engine, something that infuriated Benz (in his opinion, those traders did not understand the complexity of his creation). Defiant, the engineer claimed that his engine would run an experimental vehicle that would travel the roads. The board members thought he was ranting, and that disparity of goals caused Benz to resign in January of the following year. By then the German visionary's situation was quite desperate. He had no money, no tools or premises in which to work on his car project. In addition, he was already the father of four children, whom he had to support. Fortunately, his love of bicycles turned out to be the solution to his problems.

The cycling adventures had brought Benz into contact with Max Kaspar Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Esslinger, both velocipede enthusiasts and successful businessmen. Rose and Esslinger thought Benz's vehicle proposal was reasonable, so they decided to support it. Karl Benz soon had a new company ready, founded in October 1883 and registered as Benz & Co. Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik Mannheim, simplified to Benz & Cie. from 1899.

The sale of stationary gas engines for industrial use was the company's main objective, although the backers agreed to the development of an automotive vehicle when the business yielded sufficient profit. Stationary engines soon sold very well. In the fall of 1884, Benz began the design of an even more ambitious four-stroke, gasoline-powered engine.

Benz succeeded in making one of smaller size than the earlier gas-powered ones, which generated about two-thirds of a horsepower. More than enough, in his opinion, to move a vehicle. The new problem, in fact, was to devise such a vehicle, since no one had ever made one. Benz's prototype was a kind of three-wheeled carriage, in which he integrated several novel technologies. Steering was controlled by a rack-and-pinion system. It had a single gear, and power was transmitted from the engine to the wheels through the use of a simple belt.

His experience as a cyclist led him to design a tubular frame and to use spoked wheels. The engine, extraordinarily light for the time, consisted of a single cylinder and weighed about 100 kilograms. And since the commercialization of the spark plug was still more than a decade away, he had a brilliant idea to achieve electronic ignition of the air-fuel mixture: he used a coil and a battery together.

The date on which that autonomous tricycle first ran is unknown. Benz's own recollections and those of some of his employees seem to indicate that it was in the autumn of 1885. The engineer obtained the patent for the automobile in November 1886, although the initial tests of the prototype were not satisfactory. The first day it barely traveled a few meters, because an ignition cable broke. When they repaired the cable and got it running again, the chain on one rear wheel came loose. A lot more work had to be done on it.

Parallel to Benz's work, German engineers Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach were building another motor vehicle, but with only two wheels. Two decades earlier, the first steam-powered, engine-driven velocipedes had been built in the United States and France, but they were unsuccessful. In many ways, Maybach and Daimler's could be considered the first motorcycle in history: it was not a velocipede, but a “safe bicycle”. It had an internal combustion engine and both wheels were the same size. In addition, the engine was placed under the saddle, as in today's models. Of course, a pair of stabilizer wheels had to be added to the sides... It was developed in 1885, and only one unit was manufactured.

In 1886 Benz had already built two new prototypes, but he never finished applying new adjustments and modifications. His perfectionism began to make his wife, Bertha, impatient, so she decided to test whether or not the vehicle was operational. In 1888, Bertha was planning a trip to Pforzheim to visit her mother. Eugen, the couple's 15-year-old eldest son, thought that the trip would be an ideal opportunity to test the car. Bertha agreed.

Pforzheim was about a hundred kilometers away: if she and her children could make it there, her husband would have the ultimate proof he was looking for. So the wife and children set out to try without Benz knowing anything of what they had planned. The excursion, even with difficulties, went well. Bertha, with her sons Eugen and Ri chard, set out for Pforzheim in the morning and arrived in the evening. She immediately telegraphed her husband to tell him the news. The Benz automobile was a success.

A new version of the prototype won the gold medal when it was exhibited at the Munich Engineering Exhibition in September of the same year. Following the public's favorable reception of the vehicle, Benz decided that the time had come to manufacture cars for sale. He produced a model catalog entitled Neuer Patent-Motorwagen, in which he described the product as “a pleasant vehicle fully capable of replacing a horse and carriage”.

He sold only one example. His buyer was Émile Roger, the representative in France of Benz & Cie (which was still manufacturing gas engines). It was no coincidence: France was the most enthusiastic country in terms of automotive initiatives, and there was an industrial contingent willing to manufacture cars. By then, Daimler was also building automobile engines. The dream of a horseless carriage was beginning to become a reality, thanks to the motorwagen and other similar models.

A sport is born

The car as a reliable and fast means of transport finally found its way into the public mind thanks to an idea of the French newspaper Le Petit Journal. Its initiative would popularize automobiles - until then often considered an invention of the devil - in a spectacular way. In July 1894, the Parisian newspaper sponsored the first automobile race in history. The course, over 100 kilometers long, ran from Paris to Rouen.

The Peugeot and Panhard & Levassor brands, both equipped with Daimler engines, jointly won first prize. A new sport, motor racing, had just been born, and with it, cars became objects of desire. The representative Émile Roger had also participated in that race with a small Benz called Vis-a-Vis. It was a new model introduced in 1893.

However, Karl Benz did not agree with the appearance of his brand in the French race. The Vis-a-Vis did not have the powerful Daimler engine of the winning cars and, besides, all the engineer wanted was to sell as many cars as possible to a growing clientele.

The automotive business would not stop growing from then on. Daimler and his right-hand man, Maybach, had founded the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in 1890, which by 1896 was already producing trucks and had entered the cab business.

Luxury and distinction

That same year, a personage would appear at the DMG factory in Cannstatt who would forever change the fortunes of the firm. He was Emil Jellinek, a prosperous merchant obsessed with high society and very interested in automobiles, especially fast ones. Aware of the power of the Daimler engines, Jellinek was not satisfied with the speed of the DMG commercial cars, so he ordered four units with the express request that they should reach 40 km/h (25 mph).

The first driver's license in history was issued on August 1, 1888 in the name of Karl Benz. Public domain

Daimler and Maybach agreed, and thanks to the success of the order, Jellinek soon afterwards enjoyed overtaking Baron Arthur de Rothschild's automobile on the French Riviera. He also had no trouble selling Rothschild three of the four Daimlers he had ordered, and realized that offering high-performance cars to wealthy people could be quite a business. So he ordered six more, with new specifications.

At the time, Jellinek's top priority was for his cars to win races. However, at Nice Week in March 1900, his Daimler crashed, taking the life of driver Wilhelm Bauer.

Jellinek attributed the accident to poor design. If races were to be won, radical changes had to be made. So he asked DMG for a lighter, lower, longer and wider model with a 35-horsepower engine (seven more than the car that had killed Bauer).

The dealer was sure that his car would be a racing success and that it would sell itself. To eliminate DMG's reluctance, he ordered 36 units, on condition that he would sell them exclusively. In addition, he added a final condition to the deal: the new Daimler should be named after his eleven-year-old daughter, Mercedes. In fact, in motor racing it was known by the nickname Herr Mercedes.

It was an offer DMG could not refuse (the order amounted to €95,000 out of 1900). Maybach and Paul Daimler, who at the time was in charge of the business after the death of his father, took great care to satisfy the suggestions and details that Jellinek passed on to them by letter. The first copy was sent to Nice on December 22. After a few adjustments, it was ready for Nice Week, which was to take place in March of the following year.

The French city, which at the time was the playground of the rich and aristocratic on both sides of the Atlantic, was the perfect setting for presenting the Mercedes. But the car even exceeded Jellinek's own expectations: it won every race.

The new Mercedes was the talk of the town, and the specialized press gave it a great reception. It was a masterpiece, the first car in history with modern performance and aesthetics that were already in line with today's automotive concept.

In June 1926, the two oldest car manufacturers, DMG and Benz & Cie. merged. Thus Daimler-Benz AG was born, a legendary brand from which Mercedes-Benz cars, trucks and buses were to emerge. The soul of the former Benz & Cie. would die out shortly afterwards, in 1929. Karl Benz died with the satisfaction of having reached the top. The German's perseverance and meticulousness had paid off.

Source:

• Karl Benz y la creación del primer automóvil
  https://www.theshermantank.com/about/the-sherman-tank-engine-page/the-chrysler-a57-page/