Would the motor car have made its impact on the world at the
time it did without the exploits of a woman named Bertha Benz? One has to
wonder.
Bertha was the wife of inventor Karl Benz, who built the
world’s first road vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine. However,
having built it he seemed reluctant to do anything with it, apart from admire
it as it sat outside his house. It was an odd-looking vehicle by modern standards,
having three wheels, steered by a tiller, and with seats that faced each other
as in a railway carriage.
Bertha decided, one day in August 1888, that this invention
needed a bit of a publicity boost. She therefore took two of her sons on a ride
in the car, to go and see her mother, who lived 65 miles away.
Bertha Benz was obviously an adventurous and ingenious lady,
who was quite prepared to take whatever steps were necessary to overcome the
shortcomings of her husband’s invention and face the discomforts of the journey.
For one thing, the roads she had to travel along were nothing like modern ones
with nice smooth surfaces, and the wheels of the vehicle did not have pneumatic
tyres. The only springs were similar to those found on a horse-drawn carriage.
The engine soon needed cooling, so she had to stop whenever
she crossed a river to collect water for this purpose. When the fuel line
became blocked she freed the obstruction with a hatpin and had to use one of
her stocking garters to insulate the ignition.
The fuel tank was too small for a journey of this length, so
she had to buy a petroleum solvent from a wayside pharmacy. Fortunately, this
did the trick.
News of her trip sped faster than she did and she was
greeted by eager newspapermen when she and her passengers reached her mother’s
house. After three days she started off back home again, having made a detailed
list of all the improvements that husband Karl needed to make in order for his
invention to be commercially viable!
© John Welford
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