dudlet1
G’day,
My name is Dudley, I have been a petrol head for more years than I care to remember. On my
eighth birthday (1948) my father took me up to the shed to give me my present. On the bench and the floor were boxes of bits that once were a motorcycle “There you go my Son, happy birthday it’s a 500cc BSA M20.” He went on to say “If you can put it together, you can have it.” He was true to his word. Every time I asked him a question about it he would reply “As I said my son, if you can put it together, you can have it.” I first started to ride my M20 up and down the garden in February 1951 four months before my eleventh birthday.
Some 48 years (1996) later and coincidentally 100 years after Karl Benz built the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, I purchased a Model of this the first Automobile. It was beautiful; polished brass, copper and timber everywhere. It had a large bright red single cylinder .9 horse power engine lying horizontally between the two steel spoked large rear wheels. Hanging from the crank shaft below the engine was a 600mm diameter flywheel with 5 ‘S’ shaped spokes. The 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, is the very first motor car and is a true work of art.
Three years ago I retired, so now with a bit of time on my hands I decided to build a working replica of this the first motor car ever made. I started gathering as much information as I could about the Motorwagen and Mr. Karl Benz its builder. I already had the model it was now just a matter of reversing the scaling to bring it back to full size. I dismantled the model and carefully measured each part then multiplied them by eight. Naturally quite a large number of the modeled parts were not quite to scale so it was a matter of working it out as I went.
I spend most days in my shed making parts and slowly assembling and photographing progress of the Benz. In the evenings I spend an hour or so at the computer downloading photos and writing about the day’s work. Now some 18 months latter it is almost finished. Everything having to be handmade and with no drawings, only photographs and the model to go by has made this project a real challenge.
If you are interested in this project and would like to know more about it please feel free to ask.
Dudley.
My name is Dudley, I have been a petrol head for more years than I care to remember. On my
eighth birthday (1948) my father took me up to the shed to give me my present. On the bench and the floor were boxes of bits that once were a motorcycle “There you go my Son, happy birthday it’s a 500cc BSA M20.” He went on to say “If you can put it together, you can have it.” He was true to his word. Every time I asked him a question about it he would reply “As I said my son, if you can put it together, you can have it.” I first started to ride my M20 up and down the garden in February 1951 four months before my eleventh birthday.
Some 48 years (1996) later and coincidentally 100 years after Karl Benz built the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, I purchased a Model of this the first Automobile. It was beautiful; polished brass, copper and timber everywhere. It had a large bright red single cylinder .9 horse power engine lying horizontally between the two steel spoked large rear wheels. Hanging from the crank shaft below the engine was a 600mm diameter flywheel with 5 ‘S’ shaped spokes. The 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, is the very first motor car and is a true work of art.
Three years ago I retired, so now with a bit of time on my hands I decided to build a working replica of this the first motor car ever made. I started gathering as much information as I could about the Motorwagen and Mr. Karl Benz its builder. I already had the model it was now just a matter of reversing the scaling to bring it back to full size. I dismantled the model and carefully measured each part then multiplied them by eight. Naturally quite a large number of the modeled parts were not quite to scale so it was a matter of working it out as I went.
I spend most days in my shed making parts and slowly assembling and photographing progress of the Benz. In the evenings I spend an hour or so at the computer downloading photos and writing about the day’s work. Now some 18 months latter it is almost finished. Everything having to be handmade and with no drawings, only photographs and the model to go by has made this project a real challenge.
If you are interested in this project and would like to know more about it please feel free to ask.
Dudley.
