Bertha Benz

Bertha Benz at age 18, circa 1867

Cäcilie Bertha Ringer was born on 3 May 1849 to a wealthy family in Pforzheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden.[2][3]

Two years before her marriage to Karl Benz, she used part of her dowry to invest in his failing iron construction company.[4] As an unmarried woman, she was able to do so; after she married Benz, according to German law, Bertha lost her legal power to act as an investor.[5] On 20 July 1872, Bertha Ringer married Karl Benz. As he moved on to a new manufacturing venture, Benz & Cie, he continued to use her dowry as financial support.

Karl finished work on his first horseless carriage in December 1885. Bertha served as a field tester, contributing to the design of the Motorwagen by adding wire insulation and inventing leather brake pads to supplement the wooden brakes when they failed. Moreover, she identified several key areas of opportunities – such as the fuel line design – that Karl later improved. In addition to her contributions to the machine’s design, Bertha helped finance the development of the Motorwagen. She would hold patent rights under modern law, but as a married woman, she was not allowed to be named as an inventor on the patent at that time.[6]

Together they had five children: Eugen (1873–1958), Richard (1874–1955), Clara (1877–1968), Thilde (1882–1974), and Ellen (1890–1973). When her husband was two years old, her father-in-law Johann Benz died of pneumonia.

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen Number 3 of 1886, used by Bertha Benz for the highly publicized first long distance road trip, 106 km (66 mi), by automobile

In 1886, Benz presented the Patent-Motorwagen automobile to the world. Within the decade, 25 vehicles had been built. With cutting-edge bicycle constructions, the Model I was the original Patent Motor Car and the world's first automobile.[7][8]

The Model II was converted to a four-wheeler for test purposes, making it the only one of this model.

The first Patent Motor Car sold in small production runs was the Model III. It had powered rear wheels with a ringed steel and solid rubber, steerable front wheel. Various options from which to choose were provided for customers, such as seat arrangements and a folding top.[9]

Last home of Karl and Bertha Benz, now the location of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation in Ladenburg, Baden-Württemberg

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,[1] though illegally. 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 (66 mi).[10][11]

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.[12]

She left Mannheim around dawn, solving numerous problems along the way.[13] Bertha demonstrated her significant technical capabilities on this journey.[14] With no fuel tank and only a 4.5-litre supply of petrol in the carburetor, she had to find ligroin, the petroleum solvent needed for the car to run. It was only available at apothecary shops, so she stopped in Wiesloch at the city pharmacy to purchase the fuel.[9] At the time, petrol and other fuels could only be bought from chemists, and so this is how the chemist in Wiesloch became the first fuel station in the world.[14]

She cleaned a blocked fuel line with her hat pin and used her garter as insulation material.[14][15] A blacksmith had to help mend a chain at one point. When the wooden brakes began to fail, Benz visited a cobbler to install leather, making the world's first pair of brake lining. An evaporative cooling system was employed to cool the engine, making water supply a big worry along the trip.[16] The trio added water to their supply every time they stopped.[9] The car's two gears were not enough to surmount uphill inclines and Eugen and Richard often had to push the vehicle up steep roads.[9] Benz reached Pforzheim somewhat after dusk, notifying her husband of her successful journey by telegram. She drove back to Mannheim several days later.

Karl and Bertha Benz 1925 — Zenodot Verlagsges. mbH

The novel trip received a great deal of publicity, as she had sought. The drive was a key event in the technical development of the automobile. The pioneering couple introduced several improvements after Bertha's experiences. She reported everything that had happened along the way and made important suggestions, such as the introduction of an additional gear for climbing hills and brake linings to improve brake-power. Her trip proved to the burgeoning automotive industry that test drives were essential to their business.[4][9]

Benz died in her villa in Ladenburg in 1944, where the workshop of Karl Benz had been built after they had moved there in 1906 and he established a solely family-held business, Benz and Sons. Karl Benz had died in 1929, after the success of Daimler-Benz was assured. Members of the family resided in the home for thirty more years. The Benz home now has been designated as historic and is used as a scientific meeting facility for a nonprofit foundation, the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation, that honors both Bertha and Karl Benz for their roles in the history of automobiles.

In 1925 Karl Benz wrote the following in his memoirs: "Only one person remained with me in the small ship of life when it seemed destined to sink. That was my wife. Bravely and resolutely she set the new sails of hope." [17]

• Angela Elis (2010), Mein Traum ist länger als die Nacht. Wie Bertha Benz ihren Mann zu Weltruhm fuhr [My dream is longer than the night. How Bertha Benz drove her husband to world fame.] (in German), Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, ISBN 978-3-455-50146-9