1886 Benz, “World’s First Automobile!”
The Benz Patent Motorcar was more than another invention in the pantheon of man’s technology. It was the one single invention that opened the world, that brought everyone and everything just a little bit closer.
Karl Benz received his patent on January. 29, 1886 although he had actually built the 1st car in 1885. Due to weather conditions in Mannheim, Germany, he had to wait until the Summer of 1886 to really demonstrate his new invention.
The world famous Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany has the ORIGINAL car on display… naturally it is not… nor will it ever be for sale!
Mercedes-Benz to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Karl Benz’s invention, produced 10 EXACT DUPLICATES of the world’s first car.
This is #1 of the ten cars!
Like the original car, this car runs on Kerosene and produces .9 of 1 Horsepower.
Produced by Mercedes-Benz in 1986….. To my knowledge there only two such cars in the United States with the other eight scattered around the world.
This is a car that one could actually put inside his home, instead of a garage… it’s an amazing piece of history… and quite a conversation piece!
1886 Benz….#1 of ten built by the Mercedes Benz factory in 1986!
On July 3rd, 1886, an event occurred that certainly had an enormous impact on the History of Mankind….. for it was on that day the first usable car in the world…. Karl Benz’s patented motorcar was given it’s first public outing. No one could really know at the time that this simple carriage, achieving 12 KPH, was the beginning of a new era in human history… this was the dawn of the automobile age…. and our lives would be dramatically changed forever! The first sale from Benz and Co. was made to a Parisian named Émile Rogers in 1887
Benz’s first car had a four-stoke single-cylinder engine, which displaced 990 cc’s. The engine was mounted horizontally on the vehicle. which in many ways was a unique blend of a horse carriage and a three-wheeled bicycle. Producing 0.9 horsepower, the engine drove wire spiked wheels through Benz’s innovative arrary of differential gear, belts and chains..
Benz’s first automobile included innovations that are still used today on over 400 hundred million automobiles and trucks. It had electric ignition, a water-cooled engine and quite a modern differential gear.
The custom made body included a two-passenger seat and rack-and-pinon steering operated by a “tiller.” This first auto had no foot brakes and was stopped manually by a handbrake applied to the drive mechanism. With an advanced differential drive train, no reverse gear and a belt clutch, this car could reach speeds of 12-14KPH.
When Benz’s “horseless carriage” appeared at the World’s Fair Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893, it ignited the imagination of the public and triggered the very beginning of the automobile industry.