One morning in August 1888, Bertha Benz and her two sons, Eugen (15), and Richard (13), woke up early. They got dressed very quietly, so as not to waken the head of the family, Karl Benz. They left a note that said, “We are going to visit Grandma.” They crept out to Mr. Benz‘s workshop, opened the door, and pushed out a three-wheeled vehicle. It was the fruit of Mr. Benz’s long and hard work - the first engine car.
Imagine it: a wooden construction more similar to a horse carriage than to the cars we have now: no roof, no hood, two wheels in the back but only one wheel in the front, a kind of handle instead of a steering wheel, leather-covered seats, and, the most important part, a 2.5 horsepower single-cylinder four-stroke engine.
The car that Mrs. Benz and her sons rolled out of the workshop had gone through a great deal of development since its registration (no. DRP 37435) two years before, but Mr. Benz felt it needed even more work and improvement. He believed that most people would not trust such a new thing enough to be willing to buy it, and so it seemed to him that the prospects for any success on the market were not good. In contrast, his loving and energetic wife believed immensely in his abilities, and was more than certain that the fruit was ripe enough to be picked. Her plan was to make a long-distance journey in her husband’s invention, which would persuade everyone of the benefits and reliability of the new “horseless carriage”.
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