Karl Benz
Encyclopedia
Karl Friedrich Benz, was a German
engine designer and car engineer
, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline
-powered car
, and together with Bertha Benz
pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz
. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler
and Wilhelm Maybach
working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz patent
ed his work first and, after that, patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine
feasible for use in cars. In 1886 Benz was granted a patent for his first car.
s at Mannheim demanded that Bertha and Karl Benz's enterprise be incorporated
due to the high production costs it maintained. The Benz's were forced to improvise an association with photographer Emil Bühler and his brother (a cheese
merchant), in order to get additional bank support. The company became the joint-stock company Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim in 1882.
After all the necessary incorporation agreements, Benz was unhappy because he was left with merely five percent of the shares and a modest position as director. Worst of all, his ideas weren't considered when designing new products, so he withdrew from that corporation just one year later, in 1883.
Benz's lifelong hobby
brought him to a bicycle repair shop in Mannheim owned by Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Eßlinger. In 1883, the three founded a new company producing industrial machines: Benz & Company Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik, usually referred to as, Benz & Cie. Quickly growing to twenty-five employees, it soon began to produce static gas engine
s as well.
The success of the company gave Benz the opportunity to indulge in his old passion of designing a horseless carriage. Based on his experience with, and fondness for, bicycles, he used similar technology when he created an automobile
. It featured wire wheels (unlike carriages' wooden ones)
with a four-stroke engine of his own design between the rear wheels, with a very advanced coil ignition and evaporative cooling rather than a radiator. Power was transmitted by means of two roller chain
s to the rear axle. Karl Benz finished his creation in 1885 and named it the Benz Patent Motorwagen
.
It was the first automobile
entirely designed as such to generate its own power, not simply a motorized stage coach or horse carriage, which is why Karl Benz was granted his patent and is regarded as its inventor.
The Motorwagen was patented on January 29, 1886 as DRP-37435: "automobile fueled by gas". The 1885 version was difficult to control, leading to a collision with a wall during a public demonstration. The first successful tests on public roads were carried out in the early summer of 1886. The next year Benz created the Motorwagen Model 2 which had several modifications, and in 1887, the definitive Model 3 with wooden wheels was introduced, showing at the Paris Expo the same year.
Benz began to sell the vehicle (advertising it as the Benz Patent Motorwagen) in the late summer of 1888, making it the first commercially available automobile in history. The second customer of the Motorwagen was a Parisian bicycle
manufacturer Emile Roger who had already been building Benz engine
s under license
from Karl Benz for several years. Roger added the Benz automobiles (many built in France) to the line he carried in Paris
and initially most were sold there.
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Early customers could only buy gasoline from pharmacies that sold small quantities as a cleaning product. The early-1888 version of the Motorwagen had no gears and could not climb hills unaided. This limitation was rectified after Bertha Benz
made her famous trip driving one of the vehicles a great distance and suggested to her husband the addition of another gear.
An important part in the Benz story is this first long distance automobile trip, where entrepreneurial Bertha Benz, supposedly without the knowledge of her husband, on the morning of August 5, 1888, took this vehicle on a 106 km (65.9 mi) trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim
to visit her mother, taking her sons Eugen and Richard with her. In addition to having to locate pharmacies on the way to fuel up, she repaired various technical and mechanical problems and invented brake lining. After some longer downhill slopes she ordered a shoemaker to nail leather on the brake blocks. Bertha Benz and sons finally arrived at nightfall, announcing the achievement to Karl by telegram. It had been her intention to demonstrate the feasibility of using the Benz Motorwagen for travel and to obtain publicity
that would make people aware of it, in the manner now referred to as, live marketing. Today the event is celebrated every two years in Germany with an antique automobile rally. In 2008 Bertha Benz Memorial Route
was officially approved as a route of industrial heritage of mankind, because it follows Bertha Benz's tracks of the world's first long-distance journey by automobile in 1888. Now everybody can follow the 194 km of signposted route from Mannheim
via Heidelberg
to Pforzheim
(Black Forest
) and back.
Benz's Model 3 made its wide-scale debut to the world in the 1889 World's Fair
in Paris
, and about twenty-five Motorwagens were built between 1886 and 1893.
The great demand for stationary, static internal combustion engines forced Karl Benz to enlarge the factory in Mannheim, and in 1886 a new building located on Waldhofstrasse (operating until 1908) was added. Benz & Cie. had grown in the interim from 50 employees in 1889 to 430 in 1899.
During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest automobile company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899.
Because of its size, in 1899, Benz & Cie. became a joint-stock company with the arrival of Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Ganß, who came aboard as members of the Board of Management
. Ganß worked in the commercialization department, which is somewhat similar to marketing
in contemporary corporations.
The new directors recommended that Benz should create a less expensive automobile suitable for mass production
. In 1893, Karl Benz created the Victoria
, a two-passenger automobile with a 3-hp
engine, which could reach the top speed of 11 mph and had a pivot
al front axle
operated by a roller-chained
tiller
for steering
. The model was successful with 85 units sold in 1893.
The Benz Velo also participated in the first automobile race, the 1894 Paris to Rouen Rally.
In 1895, Benz designed the first truck
in history, with some of the units later modified by the first motor bus
company: the Netphener, becoming the first motor buses in history.
In 1896, Karl Benz was granted a patent
for his design of the first flat engine
. It had horizontally opposed piston
s, a design in which the corresponding pistons reach top dead centre simultaneously, thus balancing each other with respect to momentum
. Flat engines with four or fewer cylinders are most commonly called boxer engines, boxermotor in German, and also are known as horizontally opposed engines. This design is still used by Porsche
, Subaru
, and some high performance engines used in racing cars
. In motorcycles, the most famous boxer engine is found in BMW motorcycles, though the boxer engine design was used in many other models, including Zundapp
, Wooler, Douglas Dragonfly
, Ratier
, Universal, IMZ-Ural
, Dnepr
, Gnome et Rhône
, Chang Jiang, Marusho
, and the Honda Gold Wing.
Although Gottlieb Daimler
died in March 1900—and there is no evidence that Benz and Daimler
knew each other nor that they knew about each other's early achievements—eventually, competition with Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft
(DMG) in Stuttgart
began to challenge the leadership of Benz & Cie. In October 1900 the main designer of DMG, Wilhelm Maybach
, built the engine that would be used later, in the Mercedes-35hp of 1902. The engine was built to the specifications of Emil Jellinek
under a contract for him to purchase thirty-six vehicles with the engine and for him to become a dealer of the special series. Jellinek stipulated the new engine be named Daimler-Mercedes (for his daughter). Maybach would quit DMG in 1907, but he designed the model and all of the important changes. After testing, the first was delivered to Jellinek on December 22, 1900. Jellinek continued to make suggestions for changes to the model and obtained good results racing the automobile in the next few years, encouraging DMG to engage in commercial production of automobiles, which they did in 1902.
Benz countered with Parsifil, introduced in 1903 with a vertical twin engine that achieved a top speed of 37 mi/h. Then, without consulting Benz, the other directors hired some French designers. France was a country with an extensive automobile industry based on Maybach's creations. Because of this action, after difficult discussions, Karl Benz announced his retirement from design management on January 24, 1903, although he remained as director on the Board of Management through its merger with DMG in 1926 and, remained on the board of the new Daimler-Benz corporation until his death in 1929.
Benz's sons Eugen and Richard left Benz & Cie. in 1903, but Richard returned to the company in 1904 as the designer of passenger vehicles.
That year, sales of Benz & Cie. reached 3,480 automobiles, and the company remained the leading manufacturer of automobiles.
Along with continuing as a director of Benz & Cie., Karl Benz soon would found another company—with his son, Eugen—closely held within the family, manufacturing automobiles under another brand and using a French spelling variant of Benz's first name for the first initial of the privately held company (see discussion in the next section).
In 1909, the Blitzen Benz was built in Mannheim by Benz & Cie. The bird-beaked vehicle had a 21.5-liter (1312ci), 200 hp engine, and on November 9, 1909 in the hands of Victor Hémery
of France, the land speed racer
at Brooklands
, set a record of 226.91 km/h (141.94 mph), said to be "faster than any plane, train, or automobile" at the time, a record that was not exceeded for ten years by any other vehicle. It was transported to several countries, including the United States, to establish multiple records of this achievement.
Karl Benz, Bertha Benz, and their son, Eugen, moved 10 km east of Mannheim to live in nearby Ladenburg
, and solely with their own capital, founded the private company, C. Benz Sons (German: Benz Söhne) in 1906, producing automobiles and gas engines. The latter type was replaced by petrol engines because lack of demand.
This company never issued stocks publicly, building its own line of automobiles independently from Benz & Cie., which was located in Mannheim. The Benz Sons automobiles were of good quality and became popular in London
as taxis
.
In 1912, Karl Benz liquidated all of his shares in Benz Sons and left this family-held company in Ladenburg to Eugen and Richard, but he remained as a director of Benz & Cie.
During a birthday celebration for him in his home town of Karlsruhe
on November 25, 1914, the seventy year-old Karl Benz was awarded an honorary doctorate
by his alma mater, the Karlsruhe University, thereby becoming—Dr. Ing. h. c. Karl Benz.
Almost from the very beginning of the production of automobiles, participation in sports car racing
became a major method to gain publicity for manufacturers. At first, the production models were raced and the Benz Velo participated in the first automobile race: Paris to Rouen 1894. Later, investment in developing racecars for motorsports produced returns through sales generated by the association of the name of the automobile with the winners. Unique race vehicles were built at the time, as seen in the photograph here of the Benz, the first mid-engine and aerodynamically designed, Tropfenwagen, a "teardrop" body introduced at the 1923 European Grand Prix
at Monza
.
In the last production year of the Benz Sons company, 1923, three hundred and fifty units were built. During the following year, 1924, Karl Benz built two additional 8/25 hp units of the automobile manufactured by this company, tailored for his personal use, which he never sold; they are still preserved.
because of rapid inflation. Negotiations between the two companies resumed and in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, sales, and advertising—marketing their automobile models jointly—although keeping their respective brands.
On June 28, 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz
company, baptizing all of its automobiles, Mercedes Benz
, honoring the most important model of the DMG automobiles, the 1902 Mercedes-35hp, along with the Benz name. The name of that DMG model had been selected after ten-year-old Mercedes Jellinek
, the daughter of Emil Jellinek
who had set the specifications for the new model. Between 1900 and 1909 he was a member of DMG's board of management and long before the merger Jellinek had resigned.
Karl Benz was a member of the new Daimler Benz board of management for the remainder of his life. A new logo
was created, consisting of a three pointed star (representing Daimler's motto
: "engines for land, air, and water") surrounded by traditional laurels
from the Benz logo, and the brand of all of its automobiles was labeled Mercedes Benz. Model names would follow the brand name in the same convention as today.
The next year, 1927, the number of units sold tripled to 7,918 and the diesel
line was launched for truck production. In 1928 the Mercedes-Benz SSK
was presented.
On April 4, 1929, Karl Benz died at home in Ladenburg at the age of eighty-four from a bronchial inflammation
. Until her death on May 5, 1944, Bertha Benz
continued to reside in their last home. Members of the family resided in the home for thirty more years. The Benz home now has been designated as historic
and is used as a scientific meeting facility for a nonprofit foundation, the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation, that honors both Bertha and Karl Benz for their roles in the history of automobiles.
on 23 May. A trailer of the movie and a "making of" special were released on YouTube.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
engine designer and car engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
-powered car
Čar
Čar is a village in the municipality of Bujanovac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the town has a population of 296 people.-References:...
, and together with Bertha Benz
Bertha Benz
Bertha Benz was born on 3 May 1849 in Pforzheim, Germany. She married inventor Karl Benz on 20 July 1872, and died 5 May 1944 in Ladenburg...
pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler was an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf , in what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development...
and Wilhelm Maybach
Wilhelm Maybach
Wilhelm Maybach was an early German engine designer and industrialist. During the 1890s he was hailed in France, then the world centre for car production, as the "King of constructors"....
working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed his work first and, after that, patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine
Internal combustion engine
The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
feasible for use in cars. In 1886 Benz was granted a patent for his first car.
Benz's Gasmotoren-Fabrik Mannheim (1882 to 1883)
Problems arose again when the bankBank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
s at Mannheim demanded that Bertha and Karl Benz's enterprise be incorporated
Incorporation (business)
Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation . The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organisation, sports club, or a government of a new city or town...
due to the high production costs it maintained. The Benz's were forced to improvise an association with photographer Emil Bühler and his brother (a cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
merchant), in order to get additional bank support. The company became the joint-stock company Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim in 1882.
After all the necessary incorporation agreements, Benz was unhappy because he was left with merely five percent of the shares and a modest position as director. Worst of all, his ideas weren't considered when designing new products, so he withdrew from that corporation just one year later, in 1883.
Benz & Cie. and the Motorwagen
 |
| Three wheels |
|---|
| Tubular steel frame |
| Rack and pinion steering, connected to a driver end tiller; wheel chained to front axle |
| Electric ignition |
| Differential rear end gears (mechanically operated inlet valves) |
| Water-cooled internal combustion engine |
| Gas or petrol four-stroke horizontally mounted engine |
| Single cylinder, Bore 116 mm, Stroke 160 mm |
| Patent model: 958 cc, 0.8 hp, 600 W, 16 km/h |
| Commercialized model: 1600 cc, ¾ hp, 8 mi/h |
Benz's lifelong hobby
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
brought him to a bicycle repair shop in Mannheim owned by Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Eßlinger. In 1883, the three founded a new company producing industrial machines: Benz & Company Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik, usually referred to as, Benz & Cie. Quickly growing to twenty-five employees, it soon began to produce static gas engine
Gas engine
A gas engine means an engine running on a gas, such as coal gas, producer gas biogas, landfill gas, or natural gas. In the UK, the term is unambiguous...
s as well.
The success of the company gave Benz the opportunity to indulge in his old passion of designing a horseless carriage. Based on his experience with, and fondness for, bicycles, he used similar technology when he created an automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
. It featured wire wheels (unlike carriages' wooden ones)
with a four-stroke engine of his own design between the rear wheels, with a very advanced coil ignition and evaporative cooling rather than a radiator. Power was transmitted by means of two roller chain
Roller chain
Roller chain or bush roller chain is the type of chain drive most commonly used for transmission of mechanical power on many kinds of domestic, industrial and agricultural machinery, including conveyors, wire and tube drawing machines, printing presses, cars, motorcycles, and simple machines like...
s to the rear axle. Karl Benz finished his creation in 1885 and named it the Benz Patent Motorwagen
Benz Patent Motorwagen
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen , built in 1886, is widely regarded as the first automobile, that is, a vehicle designed to be propelled by a motor...
.
It was the first automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
entirely designed as such to generate its own power, not simply a motorized stage coach or horse carriage, which is why Karl Benz was granted his patent and is regarded as its inventor.
The Motorwagen was patented on January 29, 1886 as DRP-37435: "automobile fueled by gas". The 1885 version was difficult to control, leading to a collision with a wall during a public demonstration. The first successful tests on public roads were carried out in the early summer of 1886. The next year Benz created the Motorwagen Model 2 which had several modifications, and in 1887, the definitive Model 3 with wooden wheels was introduced, showing at the Paris Expo the same year.
Benz began to sell the vehicle (advertising it as the Benz Patent Motorwagen) in the late summer of 1888, making it the first commercially available automobile in history. The second customer of the Motorwagen was a Parisian bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
manufacturer Emile Roger who had already been building Benz engine
Engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines burn a fuel to create heat which is then used to create motion...
s under license
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
from Karl Benz for several years. Roger added the Benz automobiles (many built in France) to the line he carried in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and initially most were sold there.
Bertha Benz
Bertha Benz was born on 3 May 1849 in Pforzheim, Germany. She married inventor Karl Benz on 20 July 1872, and died 5 May 1944 in Ladenburg...
made her famous trip driving one of the vehicles a great distance and suggested to her husband the addition of another gear.
An important part in the Benz story is this first long distance automobile trip, where entrepreneurial Bertha Benz, supposedly without the knowledge of her husband, on the morning of August 5, 1888, took this vehicle on a 106 km (65.9 mi) trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim
Pforzheim
Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry. Until 1565 it was the home to the Margraves of Baden. Because of that it gained the nickname...
to visit her mother, taking her sons Eugen and Richard with her. In addition to having to locate pharmacies on the way to fuel up, she repaired various technical and mechanical problems and invented brake lining. After some longer downhill slopes she ordered a shoemaker to nail leather on the brake blocks. Bertha Benz and sons finally arrived at nightfall, announcing the achievement to Karl by telegram. It had been her intention to demonstrate the feasibility of using the Benz Motorwagen for travel and to obtain publicity
Publicity
Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people , goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one...
that would make people aware of it, in the manner now referred to as, live marketing. Today the event is celebrated every two years in Germany with an antique automobile rally. In 2008 Bertha Benz Memorial Route
Bertha Benz Memorial Route
The Bertha Benz Memorial Route is a German tourist and theme route in Baden-Württemberg and member of the European Route of Industrial Heritage...
was officially approved as a route of industrial heritage of mankind, because it follows Bertha Benz's tracks of the world's first long-distance journey by automobile in 1888. Now everybody can follow the 194 km of signposted route from Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
via Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
to Pforzheim
Pforzheim
Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry. Until 1565 it was the home to the Margraves of Baden. Because of that it gained the nickname...
(Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
) and back.
Benz's Model 3 made its wide-scale debut to the world in the 1889 World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and about twenty-five Motorwagens were built between 1886 and 1893.
Benz & Cie. expansion
During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest automobile company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899.
Because of its size, in 1899, Benz & Cie. became a joint-stock company with the arrival of Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Ganß, who came aboard as members of the Board of Management
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
. Ganß worked in the commercialization department, which is somewhat similar to marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
in contemporary corporations.
The new directors recommended that Benz should create a less expensive automobile suitable for mass production
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
. In 1893, Karl Benz created the Victoria
Benz Viktoria
The Benz Viktoria was a car made by the Benz motor company from 1892 to 1898.It sold in large numbers across Germany when it was first sold in 1892....
, a two-passenger automobile with a 3-hp
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...
engine, which could reach the top speed of 11 mph and had a pivot
Lever
In physics, a lever is a rigid object that is used with an appropriate fulcrum or pivot point to either multiply the mechanical force that can be applied to another object or resistance force , or multiply the distance and speed at which the opposite end of the rigid object travels.This leverage...
al front axle
Axle
An axle is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to its surroundings, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle...
operated by a roller-chained
Roller chain
Roller chain or bush roller chain is the type of chain drive most commonly used for transmission of mechanical power on many kinds of domestic, industrial and agricultural machinery, including conveyors, wire and tube drawing machines, printing presses, cars, motorcycles, and simple machines like...
tiller
Tiller
A tiller or till is a lever attached to a rudder post or rudder stock of a boat that provides leverage for the helmsman to turn the rudder...
for steering
Steering
Steering is the term applied to the collection of components, linkages, etc. which will allow a vessel or vehicle to follow the desired course...
. The model was successful with 85 units sold in 1893.
The Benz Velo also participated in the first automobile race, the 1894 Paris to Rouen Rally.
In 1895, Benz designed the first truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
in history, with some of the units later modified by the first motor bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
company: the Netphener, becoming the first motor buses in history.
In 1896, Karl Benz was granted a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for his design of the first flat engine
Flat engine
A flat engine is an internal combustion engine with multiple pistons that move in a horizontal plane. Typically, the layout has cylinders arranged in two banks on either side of a single crankshaft and is sometimes known as the boxer, or horizontally opposed engine. The concept was patented in 1896...
. It had horizontally opposed piston
Piston
A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by a cylinder and is made gas-tight by piston rings. In an engine, its purpose is to transfer force from...
s, a design in which the corresponding pistons reach top dead centre simultaneously, thus balancing each other with respect to momentum
Momentum
In classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object...
. Flat engines with four or fewer cylinders are most commonly called boxer engines, boxermotor in German, and also are known as horizontally opposed engines. This design is still used by Porsche
Porsche
Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry....
, Subaru
Subaru
; is the automobile manufacturing division of Japanese transportation conglomerate Fuji Heavy Industries .Subaru is internationally known for their use of the boxer engine layout popularized in cars by the Volkswagen Beetle and Porsche 911, in most of their vehicles above 1500 cc as well as...
, and some high performance engines used in racing cars
Racing Cars
Racing Cars are a Welsh pop band, formed in the Rhondda Valley, Wales in 1973.-Career:They were signed to one of the biggest British record labels of the time, Chrysalis Records. Racing Cars's debut album yielded their only hit single with "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"...
. In motorcycles, the most famous boxer engine is found in BMW motorcycles, though the boxer engine design was used in many other models, including Zundapp
Zündapp
Zündapp was a major German motorcycle manufacturer. The company was founded in 1917 in Nuremberg by Fritz Neumeyer, together with the Friedrich Krupp AG and the machine tool manufacturer Thiel under the name "Zünder- und Apparatebau G.m.b.H." as a producer of detonators...
, Wooler, Douglas Dragonfly
Douglas Dragonfly
The Douglas Dragonfly was a British motorcycle designed and built by Douglas motorcycles in Bristol. The last motorcycle produced by the company, the 1955 Dragonfly was an all-new motorcycle built to use an improved version of an existing engine...
, Ratier
Ratier
Ratier-Figeac ia an aircraft components manufacturer in Montrouge, France.From 1926 until 1930 it also built a car with a 746 cc overhead camshaft engine....
, Universal, IMZ-Ural
IMZ-Ural
IMZ-Ural is a Russian maker of heavy sidecar motorcycles. Recently the company has developed a solo motorcycle with no sidecar.In 1940, the Soviet Union acquired the design and production techniques for BMW R 71 motorcycles and sidecars. The first M-72 model was finished in 1941...
, Dnepr
Dnepr (motorcycle)
Dnepr is the brand name of heavy motorcycles produced in Kiev, Ukraine. It has been in use since 1967.Motorcycles have been produced in Kiev since 1946 at the Kiev Motorcycle Plant . Initial production was of a 98 cc two-stroke model that was confiscated from the German firm Wanderer as...
, Gnome et Rhône
Gnome et Rhône
Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. Between 1914 and 1918 they produced 25,000 of their 9-cylinder Delta and Le Rhône 110 hp rotary designs, while another 75,000 were produced by various licensees, powering the majority of aircraft in the first half of the war on...
, Chang Jiang, Marusho
Marusho
was a company that manufactured motorcycles from 1948 to 1967. The company's Lilac model motorcycle garnered attention when it was recognized as one of the 180 best pieces of engineering in Japan .-History:...
, and the Honda Gold Wing.
Although Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler was an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf , in what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development...
died in March 1900—and there is no evidence that Benz and Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler was an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf , in what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development...
knew each other nor that they knew about each other's early achievements—eventually, competition with Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft
Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was a German engine and later automobile manufacturer, in operation from 1890 until 1926. Founded by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, it was based first in Cannstatt...
(DMG) in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
began to challenge the leadership of Benz & Cie. In October 1900 the main designer of DMG, Wilhelm Maybach
Wilhelm Maybach
Wilhelm Maybach was an early German engine designer and industrialist. During the 1890s he was hailed in France, then the world centre for car production, as the "King of constructors"....
, built the engine that would be used later, in the Mercedes-35hp of 1902. The engine was built to the specifications of Emil Jellinek
Emil Jellinek
Emil Jellinek, known after 1903 as Emil Jellinek-Mercedes was a wealthy European entrepreneur who sat on the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft between 1900 and 1909. He specified an engine designed there by Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler for the first 'modern' car...
under a contract for him to purchase thirty-six vehicles with the engine and for him to become a dealer of the special series. Jellinek stipulated the new engine be named Daimler-Mercedes (for his daughter). Maybach would quit DMG in 1907, but he designed the model and all of the important changes. After testing, the first was delivered to Jellinek on December 22, 1900. Jellinek continued to make suggestions for changes to the model and obtained good results racing the automobile in the next few years, encouraging DMG to engage in commercial production of automobiles, which they did in 1902.
Benz countered with Parsifil, introduced in 1903 with a vertical twin engine that achieved a top speed of 37 mi/h. Then, without consulting Benz, the other directors hired some French designers. France was a country with an extensive automobile industry based on Maybach's creations. Because of this action, after difficult discussions, Karl Benz announced his retirement from design management on January 24, 1903, although he remained as director on the Board of Management through its merger with DMG in 1926 and, remained on the board of the new Daimler-Benz corporation until his death in 1929.
Benz's sons Eugen and Richard left Benz & Cie. in 1903, but Richard returned to the company in 1904 as the designer of passenger vehicles.
That year, sales of Benz & Cie. reached 3,480 automobiles, and the company remained the leading manufacturer of automobiles.
Along with continuing as a director of Benz & Cie., Karl Benz soon would found another company—with his son, Eugen—closely held within the family, manufacturing automobiles under another brand and using a French spelling variant of Benz's first name for the first initial of the privately held company (see discussion in the next section).
Blitzen Benz
Victor Hémery
Victor Hémery was a champion driver of early Grand Prix motor racing who was born in Sillé-le-Guillaume, France, Sarthe, France. In 1904 he joined Automobiles Darracq S.A. as their chief tester and helped prepare cars to compete in that year's Gordon Bennett Cup...
of France, the land speed racer
Land speed record
The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération...
at Brooklands
Brooklands
Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England. It opened in 1907, and was the world's first purpose-built motorsport venue, as well as one of Britain's first airfields...
, set a record of 226.91 km/h (141.94 mph), said to be "faster than any plane, train, or automobile" at the time, a record that was not exceeded for ten years by any other vehicle. It was transported to several countries, including the United States, to establish multiple records of this achievement.
Benz Söhne (1906 to 1923)
Ladenburg
Ladenburg is a town in the district of Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Neckar, 10 km east of Mannheim, and 10 km northwest of Heidelberg.It has an old town from the Late Middle Ages...
, and solely with their own capital, founded the private company, C. Benz Sons (German: Benz Söhne) in 1906, producing automobiles and gas engines. The latter type was replaced by petrol engines because lack of demand.
This company never issued stocks publicly, building its own line of automobiles independently from Benz & Cie., which was located in Mannheim. The Benz Sons automobiles were of good quality and became popular in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
as taxis
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
.
In 1912, Karl Benz liquidated all of his shares in Benz Sons and left this family-held company in Ladenburg to Eugen and Richard, but he remained as a director of Benz & Cie.
During a birthday celebration for him in his home town of Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
on November 25, 1914, the seventy year-old Karl Benz was awarded an honorary doctorate
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
by his alma mater, the Karlsruhe University, thereby becoming—Dr. Ing. h. c. Karl Benz.
Sports car racing
Sports car racing is a form of circuit auto racing with automobiles that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built or related to road-going sports cars....
became a major method to gain publicity for manufacturers. At first, the production models were raced and the Benz Velo participated in the first automobile race: Paris to Rouen 1894. Later, investment in developing racecars for motorsports produced returns through sales generated by the association of the name of the automobile with the winners. Unique race vehicles were built at the time, as seen in the photograph here of the Benz, the first mid-engine and aerodynamically designed, Tropfenwagen, a "teardrop" body introduced at the 1923 European Grand Prix
European Grand Prix
The European Grand Prix is a Formula One event that was reintroduced during the mid-1980s and has been held regularly since 1999. From 2008 it will take place for at least another 7 years...
at Monza
Autodromo Nazionale Monza
The Autodromo Nazionale Monza is a race track located near the town of Monza, north of Milan, in Italy. The circuit's biggest event is the Formula One Italian Grand Prix, which has been hosted there since the sport's inception....
.
In the last production year of the Benz Sons company, 1923, three hundred and fifty units were built. During the following year, 1924, Karl Benz built two additional 8/25 hp units of the automobile manufactured by this company, tailored for his personal use, which he never sold; they are still preserved.
Toward Daimler-Benz and the first Mercedes-Benz in 1926
The German economic crisis worsened. In 1923 Benz & Cie. produced only 1,382 units in Mannheim, and DMG made only 1,020 in Stuttgart. The average cost of an automobile was 25 million marksGerman papiermark
The name Papiermark is applied to the German currency from the 4th August 1914 when the link between the Mark and gold was abandoned, due to the outbreak of World War I...
because of rapid inflation. Negotiations between the two companies resumed and in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, sales, and advertising—marketing their automobile models jointly—although keeping their respective brands.
On June 28, 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz
Daimler-Benz
Daimler-Benz AG was a German manufacturer of automobiles, motor vehicles, and internal combustion engines; founded in 1926. An Agreement of Mutual Interest - which was valid until year 2000 - was signed on 1 May 1924 between Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, which had...
company, baptizing all of its automobiles, Mercedes Benz
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
, honoring the most important model of the DMG automobiles, the 1902 Mercedes-35hp, along with the Benz name. The name of that DMG model had been selected after ten-year-old Mercedes Jellinek
Mércédès Jellinek
Mercédès Adriana Manuela Ramona Jellinek called Mercédès was the daughter of Austrian automobile entrepreneur Emil Jellinek and his wife Rachel Goggmann Cenrobert. She was born on September 16, 1889 and named as a term of endearment Mercedes...
, the daughter of Emil Jellinek
Emil Jellinek
Emil Jellinek, known after 1903 as Emil Jellinek-Mercedes was a wealthy European entrepreneur who sat on the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft between 1900 and 1909. He specified an engine designed there by Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler for the first 'modern' car...
who had set the specifications for the new model. Between 1900 and 1909 he was a member of DMG's board of management and long before the merger Jellinek had resigned.
Karl Benz was a member of the new Daimler Benz board of management for the remainder of his life. A new logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
was created, consisting of a three pointed star (representing Daimler's motto
Motto
A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...
: "engines for land, air, and water") surrounded by traditional laurels
Bay Laurel
The bay laurel , also known as sweet bay, bay tree, true laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel tree, or simply laurel, is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glossy leaves, native to the Mediterranean region. It is the source of the bay leaf used in cooking...
from the Benz logo, and the brand of all of its automobiles was labeled Mercedes Benz. Model names would follow the brand name in the same convention as today.
The next year, 1927, the number of units sold tripled to 7,918 and the diesel
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
line was launched for truck production. In 1928 the Mercedes-Benz SSK
Mercedes-Benz SSK
The Mercedes-Benz SSK is a roadster built by German automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz between 1928 and 1932. Its name is an acronym of Super Sport Kurz, German for "Super Sport Short", as it was a short wheelbase development of the earlier Mercedes-Benz S...
was presented.
On April 4, 1929, Karl Benz died at home in Ladenburg at the age of eighty-four from a bronchial inflammation
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...
. Until her death on May 5, 1944, Bertha Benz
Bertha Benz
Bertha Benz was born on 3 May 1849 in Pforzheim, Germany. She married inventor Karl Benz on 20 July 1872, and died 5 May 1944 in Ladenburg...
continued to reside in their last home. Members of the family resided in the home for thirty more years. The Benz home now has been designated as historic
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
and is used as a scientific meeting facility for a nonprofit foundation, the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation, that honors both Bertha and Karl Benz for their roles in the history of automobiles.
In popular culture
In 2011 a dramatized television movie about the life of Karl and Bertha Benz was made named Carl & Bertha which premiered on 11 May and was aired by Das ErsteDas Erste
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany...
on 23 May. A trailer of the movie and a "making of" special were released on YouTube.
See also
- Benz (unit)Benz (unit)A benz is a traditional German unit of velocity, equal to 1 metre per second.The name is in honor of Karl Benz, inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile....
- Bertha BenzBertha BenzBertha Benz was born on 3 May 1849 in Pforzheim, Germany. She married inventor Karl Benz on 20 July 1872, and died 5 May 1944 in Ladenburg...
, his wife and automotive pioneer - Bertha Benz Memorial RouteBertha Benz Memorial RouteThe Bertha Benz Memorial Route is a German tourist and theme route in Baden-Württemberg and member of the European Route of Industrial Heritage...
- German inventors and discoverersGerman inventors and discoverersThis is a list of German inventors and discoverers. The following list comprises people from Germany or German-speaking Europe, also of people of predominantly German heritage, in alphabetical order of the surname. The main section includes existing articles, indicated by blue links, and possibly...
- History of the internal combustion engineHistory of the internal combustion engineAlthough various forms of internal combustion engines were developed before the 19th century, their use was hindered until the commercial drilling and production of petroleum began in the mid-1850s...
External links
- Brief biographies of Karl Benz and Bertha Benz, with portraits, an extensive archive, and detailed histories presented at the Mercedes-Benz Museum.http://www.mercedes-Benz.com/content/mbcom/international/international_website/en/com/Brandworld_Museum.html
- Mercedes-Benz corporate archives http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0-5-7189-1-56989-1-0-0-0-0-0-8-7145-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html, company archives http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0-5-7189-1-10828-1-0-0-56989-0-0-135-7145-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html, history http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0-5-7168-1-9837-1-0-0-0-0-0-8-7145-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html, media management archives http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0-5-7189-1-10829-1-0-0-56989-0-0-135-7145-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html, and publications http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0-5-7189-1-10834-1-0-0-56989-0-0-135-7145-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html
- copies of the honorary doctorate and Baden State medal in gold, both awarded to Karl Benz in his lifetime.
- Das Automuseum Dr. Carl Benz in der alten Benz Fabrik is the Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum created by a private group in 1996 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.mercedes-Benz.de/content/germany/mpc/mpc_germany_website/de/home_mpc/passenger_cars/home/passenger_cars_world/heritage/museum/historical_places/car_museum_karl_Benz.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=8&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DAutomuseum%2BDr.%2BCarl%2BBenz%2B%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DNin in a former Benz factory for an ancillary business founded with his sons in LadenburgLadenburgLadenburg is a town in the district of Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Neckar, 10 km east of Mannheim, and 10 km northwest of Heidelberg.It has an old town from the Late Middle Ages...
, which was separate from his major companies. The company opened in 1906 and closed in 1923, the site has a description of this museum and contemporary photographs http://www.automuseum-ladenburg.de/cms/templates/gruen/random/3.jpg with "C. Benz SÖHNE KG" painted on the building, which contains historical photographs, some restored automobiles, and a chronology of the life of Karl Benz - Karl Benz on 3-wheelers.com
- Bertha Benz Memorial Route
- Prof. John H. Lienhard on BERTHA Benz's RIDE
- The Karl Benz family grave site in Ladenburg The urn contains the ashes of their son, Richard Benz, and the inscription on the gravestone reads:
- Dr. Ing. h. c. Karl Benz
- Geb. 26. Nov. 1844
- Gest. 4. April 1929
- Bertha Benz
- Geb. Ringer
- Geb. 3. Mai 1849
- Gest. 4. Mai 1944
- The Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation founded in 1986 at the last residence of Bertha and Karl Benz in Ladenburg.