The Benz Patent-Motorwagen

On January 29, 1886, Karl Benz filed German patent DRP 37435 for a 'vehicle powered by a gas engine' — a three-wheeled machine with a single-cylinder, 954cc four-stroke engine making two-thirds of a horsepower. It was not a carriage with an engine bolted on: Benz designed engine, chassis, steering, cooling and drivetrain as one integrated machine, the first automobile designed from the ground up as a motor vehicle.

It had three wheels because Benz could not solve four-wheel steering, so he simply built it with one wheel in front. It topped out around 16 km/h. On July 3, 1886, it made its first public outing, reported in the local Mannheim press — and the world yawned. A horseless carriage was a rich man's curiosity, and almost nobody would buy one.

Then, on August 5, 1888, Benz's wife Bertha — whose dowry had financed the whole project — took the car with her teenage sons Eugen and Richard and drove it 106 kilometres from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back: the first long-distance automobile journey in history. She fixed the ignition with her garter, unclogged the fuel line with her hatpin, and bought fuel (a cleaning agent called ligroin) at a pharmacy in Wiesloch. Orders followed.