The first car journey
Bertha Benz drove a hundred and six kilometres in 1888 without telling her husband.
Stefan Oemisch โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Bahnfrend โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Flickr user Klaus Nahr from Karlsruhe, Germany โ CC BY-SA 2.0 ยท Klaus Nahr from Germany โ CC BY-SA 2.0
An officially designated tourist route following her journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim via Heidelberg and Wiesloch, about a hundred and six kilometres. It can be driven or cycled, with signs explaining the stages โ including the pharmacy in Wiesloch regarded as the first filling station in history. The route is clearly marked and passes through fine countryside.
The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart is far larger and more modern in presentation and needs half a day, and it is the first choice if car history interests you. This museum is much smaller but its value is the place itself โ the actual Benz works โ and the small town around it. The two do not compete so much as differ in kind.
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A car museum in the former factory building of Carl Benz in the town of Ladenburg, the works where the inventor of the motor car worked in his later years. Carl Benz patented in 1886 a vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine โ the first automobile in history. But the most important part of the story is not the invention but what his wife did: in August 1888, without telling him, Bertha Benz took the car with their two sons and drove it from Mannheim to Pforzheim โ about a hundred and six kilometres each way โ to prove to the world that the invention was usable. That was the first long-distance car journey in history. She repaired the car on the road with her hairpin and her hat ribbon, and bought fuel from a pharmacy because filling stations did not exist. The publicity the journey generated saved the venture from commercial failure. The museum shows early Benz cars, historic models and engines, and tells this story. Ladenburg itself is a pretty small town with a medieval centre.
Bertha Benz drove a hundred and six kilometres in 1888 without telling her husband.
Filling stations did not exist, so she bought solvent from a pharmacy on the way.
The publicity it generated is what turned the invention into a business.
The former Benz works, Ladenburg