The 1st Automobile
By: James Neuhouser
The first production automobile was by Ford in 1902. Wrong. The first production automobile was made in 1888. This is a story I’ve never heard before and it is most amazing.
The first vehicle to actually travel on the roads was The Motor Wagon, invented by Carl Benz in 1886, patented and put into production in 1888. As with the invention of the airplane there were many people working on it at the same time in different countries.
Most of the inventors were putting a motor under the seat of a buggy. Carl was the first to build the entire machine from scratch. Many were building engines and Carl made his engine, a four cycle single cylinder with a 954 cc displacement. It only had about 2/3 of a horsepower and had a bit of difficulty going up hills.
The engines were somewhat like a John Deere tractor, only with one cylinder. A huge flywheel which you spin to start. When it fired it would turn four times before it fired again. You can imagine what a challenge it would be to make all of the machine parts of an engine. Then to make all the gears, the leaf springs, it was the work of a genius.
The first auto was constructed in 1886 but it was put in the barn and forgotten. After all people didn’t need different transportation when they had a horse and buggy. The top speed of the auto was 10 or 12 mph, not much more than the speed of a horse and buggy.
People ridiculed the invention. Carl’s backers pulled out and he ended up with only one supporter, his wife Bertha. Bertha put her dowery into the intervention. And another thing about Bertha, she was a born promoter. She devised a scheme to get Carl’s machine some attention.
Early in the morning of August 5, 1888, Bertha got up early in the morning, took her two oldest children and rolled the machine out of the barn. She was going to visit her mother.
Mannheim, Germany to Pforzheim a distance of 66 mi. The trip took an entire day, they got there in the evening.
Many problems along the way. The leather strap used as a brake broke and a blacksmith was able to install a new one. The fuel line plugged but she was able to unplug it with a hat pin. A couple of stops at a drugstore to buy bottles of fuel. It burned a cleaning fluid called Ligrone which was sold in 12 oz bottles at the nearest drugstore.
The notoriety she got from this venture got several orders and a company was set up to produce automobiles. It was an upgrade to spin the flywheel, hop in and go, then to hitch up horses. Also you didn’t have to feed it everyday when you weren’t working. The company exists to this day, Mercedes-Benz. 1200 of these automobiles were made. In early 1900s other companies. started making more powerful and cheaper automobiles and took over the automobile market.
