The woman who shaped the future of motoring
Bertha Benz undertook the first long distance drive in an automobile, providing to the world the capability of her husband's invention
In August 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her two sons in the Patent Motor Car built by her husband Carl Benz.
Bertha decided to go on the lengthy test drive to encourage her husband and to prove to him the capability and sustainability of his invention – albeit without telling him about it beforehand.
A few days later, she returned to Mannheim.
This first long-distance trip in the history of the automobile was a pioneering undertaking.
For the most part, it all ran smoothly.
There were only a few minor technical problems en route, which were all solved.
By completing the first long-distance journey in automotive history, Bertha Benz not only proved to her husband, as she planned, but also to many sceptics that the automobile had a big future ahead.
She had demonstrated that the motor car was fit for a purpose on this 180km return journey.
And so the rise of the later Benz & Cie.
Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik AG, Mannheim, became the biggest automotive factory in the world and would barely have been imaginable had it not been for her daringness – and that of her sons.
An original Model III Patent Motor Car, identical in construction, still exists today and is the world’s oldest remaining Benz automobile, which dates back to 1888.
