Benz Patent-Motorwagen

1886 · Three Wheeled Motor Car · Work 242 of 1,871

Benz Patent-Motorwagen, 1886, Three Wheeled Motor Car

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen rolling along a cobbled Mannheim street: a three wheeled vehicle, one single steered front wheel and two larger rear wheels, all wire spoked with solid rubber tyres, steered by a tiller bar, the single cylinder engine open to view at the rear with its large horizontal flywheel lying flat behind the bench seat, chains driving the rear axle, the driver in a bowler hat and frock coat on the open bench, plain plastered house walls with wooden shutters.

What it was used for
Carl Benz built the three-wheeler in his Mannheim workshop as an experimental vehicle; the Mercedes-Benz archive lists Model 1 as a single unit, "not for sale". The Neue Badische Landeszeitung reported its first public run on Mannheim's ring road on 3 July 1886. The series Model 3 cost 3,000 marks according to the archive; only about 25 cars of all versions were built between 1886 and 1894. In August 1888 Bertha Benz drove a Model 3 with her sons Eugen and Richard from Mannheim to Pforzheim – about 100 km according to the Mercedes-Benz archive, 106 km in other accounts. According to the Bertha Benz Memorial Route association she did so without her husband's knowledge; according to ingenieur.de she bought ligroin as fuel at the town pharmacy in Wiesloch.
What was new
On 29 January 1886 Benz applied for a patent on a "vehicle with gas engine operation" as a complete vehicle (DRP 37435, dated 2 November 1886), not an engine fitted to an existing carriage. Model 1's horizontal single-cylinder four-stroke had 954 cc and 0.75 hp at 400 rpm, electric ignition, a surface carburettor and a steel-tube frame; top speed 16 km/h. Daimler and Maybach were working in parallel in Cannstatt: in March 1886 Daimler ordered a carriage and fitted his high-speed engine. Siegfried Marcus's car was long claimed to be older (1875/1877), but the Technisches Museum Wien shows its engine was only delivered in 1888/89. The twist: the patent is now called the automobile's "birth certificate", yet only about 25 were built in eight years.

Connections

Every connection names its kind. “Forerunner” on its own would be a claim.

  1. Parallel toDaimler Motorkutsche1886Benz in Mannheim had his motor car patented in 1886; Daimler in Cannstatt fitted his engine into a bought carriage the same year. LeMO of the Deutsches Historisches Museum states that the two worked on the automobile at first without knowledge of one another: Benz as one unit of engine and chassis, Daimler starting from the engine.Source: LeMO, Deutsches Historisches Museum: Biografie Carl Friedrich Benz · LeMO, Deutsches Historisches Museum: Biografie Gottlieb Daimler · Mercedes-Benz Public Archive: Daimler motor carriage, 1886

Further reading