HomeEurope5 August 1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the world’s first practical modern automobile and the first car put into production.
5 August 1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the world’s first practical modern automobile and the first car put into production.
August 5, 2024
5 August 1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the world’s first practical modern automobile and the first car put into production.
https://i.redd.it/ha877qmjzrgd1.png
by atdoru
7 comments
On 5 August 1888, 39-year-old Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her sons Richard and Eugen, thirteen and fifteen years old respectively, in a Model III, without telling her husband and without permission of the authorities, thus becoming the first person to drive an automobile a significant distance.
Before this historic trip, motorized drives were merely very short trials, returning to the point of origin, made with assistance of mechanics. Following wagon tracks, this pioneering tour covered a one-way distance of about 106 km.
Although the ostensible purpose of the trip was to visit her mother, Bertha Benz had other motives – to prove to her husband, who had failed to adequately consider marketing his invention, that the automobile in which they both had heavily invested would become a financial success once it was shown to be useful to the general public; and to give her husband the confidence that his constructions had a future.
She must have been deaf after that trip. Mufflers weren’t a thing yet back then.
7 comments
On 5 August 1888, 39-year-old Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her sons Richard and Eugen, thirteen and fifteen years old respectively, in a Model III, without telling her husband and without permission of the authorities, thus becoming the first person to drive an automobile a significant distance.
Before this historic trip, motorized drives were merely very short trials, returning to the point of origin, made with assistance of mechanics. Following wagon tracks, this pioneering tour covered a one-way distance of about 106 km.
Although the ostensible purpose of the trip was to visit her mother, Bertha Benz had other motives – to prove to her husband, who had failed to adequately consider marketing his invention, that the automobile in which they both had heavily invested would become a financial success once it was shown to be useful to the general public; and to give her husband the confidence that his constructions had a future.
She must have been deaf after that trip. Mufflers weren’t a thing yet back then.
As in Benz tradition, it had no blinkers.
Yet some people believe women shouldn’t drive.
Man, 1800s to 50s fashion looked dap
How much fuel did she need for the distance?
The photo is a reenactment though.