There are 289 million vehicles registered in the U.S. That was of 2021. This figure included 156 million trucks, 108 million cars, 8.5 million motorcycles, and 575 thousand buses.
We Americans are bent on our cars. Some of the earliest car makers include Ford (1903), of course. But there is also Fiat (1899), Cadillac (1901), Renault (1899), and Mercedes-Benz (1883). And many more.
All of them have interesting stories concerning their origins. But one, in particular, is colorful, to say the least.
The Mercedes.
It was on this date, August 12, 1888, when Bertha, wife of inventor Karl Benz, made the first ever long-distance motor tour. She drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her two sons. They traveled in the Patent Motor Car built by her husband, Carl Benz.
Now. If this had been my family, my Mom would have packed a large grocery bag filled with snacks for the long drive, including a variety of sandwiches, Fritos, and other food sundries. I’m hoping the Benz clan did the same.
Back to their trip. A few days later, she returned to Mannheim. This first long-distance trip was a groundbreaking venture. Never before in this history of the automobile. And there she was.
I looked up the mileage. It is roughly 60 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim. Germany, in case you don’t know the small towns. For the most part, it all went well. They ran into a few minor technical problems along the way, which were said to have been solved easily. Probably lack of gas stations.
It is no big news that Carl Benz was a magnificent technician. In 1886, he applied for a patent for his motor car. This was the world’s first automobile. The world watched.
However, Carl wasn’t too strong in the business sense. That it where his wife Bertha came into play. No doubt, she supported her husband in many ways. But she recognized the importance of his invention at the very start of things. The public thought it was interesting but wondered if the vehicle was reliable. They needed to be sure it could last on long-distance routes.
So that is when Bertha concocted her long test drive to prove his invention was true. She didn’t tell Carl about her idea either long after she was on her way. As the story goes, she left a note on the kitchen table for Carl. He was still in bed sleeping. The note told him she was going to Pforzheim, but she never mentioned the “test drive.” When he woke, he saw the car was missing.
Along the way, she hit a few snags, all of which she took in stride, repairing them along the way. She even used her hat pin for a solution. Of course, she took notes and brought all this information back to Carl. And the public took note too. This helped make his cars a success.
So that was Bertha. Daring. Cunning. Inventive. Brave. And more. A better half, perhaps.
Benz died in her villa in Ladenburg in 1944. Carl Benz had died in 1929. His business, their business, Daimler-Benz, had long been a success. A good team, it seems.
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“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill
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“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
― Albert Einstein
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“The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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Benz. There were two of them to start out.
