The Adventures of Bertha Benz: 136 years ago, one of the world’s first cars was manned by a woman on a mission
How her famous road trip saved her husband’s struggling company, and kick-started today’s automobile industry
On August 5, 1888, months after her 39th birthday, Bertha Benz fired up her husband’s patented “motorwagen,” boarded the early model car with her two teenage sons, Eugen and Richard, and headed for her mother’s house 66 miles away.
On this day, Bertha Benz became the first person to take a cross-country road trip while commanding an automobile.
Her husband, Dr. Carl Benz, and his motorwagens were loud. The steering took muscle, and the breaks were shoddy. Many didn’t understand why Dr. Benz spent so much time building something few people were interested in at the time. It would be years before America’s Henry Ford had his own run-ins with public opinion. Consumer apprehension towards his Model T automobile once caused him to allegedly say, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
But Dr. Benz had a dream, one that he shared with his wife. And without Bertha’s hard work, support, and unwavering belief, Mercedes-Benz would not be the automotive powerhouse it is today.
Yes, the one who ignited today’s bustling auto industry, making newspaper headlines and taking a car company from failing to flying, was a woman.
Many articles don’t do Bertha justice. They call her a “housewife” with a context that suggests there’s no nobility in the profession. And they often paint her out to be an “aw-shucks” type that happened to stumble upon her fame.
My aim with this article is to show her actions were just as purposive as her husband’s. The powerful story of Mercedes-Benz wasn’t just a happy accident. It’s the story of grit and determination, bravery against a crowd of doubters, and an unmatched work ethic that has seemingly been relegated to the pages of history along with the Victorian era with which it reached its peak.
In modern day terms, Dr. and Mrs. Benz would be a power couple.
Buckle up for the story of Bertha’s big ride. It’s a good one.
An Ambitious Woman Meets her Match
Born on May 3, 1849 in Pforzheim, Germany, Bertha Ringer grew into a precocious young woman full of vitality. According to Mercedes-Benz Group’s dedication to her, she was, “Ambitious, curious, with an alert mind and a great interest in technological innovations…”
At 20 years old, she met her future husband, Carl, at a social function in June of 1869. Carl was a dreamer, and his dreams were big. He had plans to build the world’s first “engine-powered horseless carriage,” and she immediately began helping him realize his dreams.
Early on in their relationship, “With determination and talent,” it was said, “she helps him realize his vision of an engine-powered horseless carriage. She supports her husband in the technical implementations, puts forward her own ideas and helps him again and again in practical respect, for instance when they wound wire induction coils for the ignition mechanism.”
Her own passion and interests would ultimately pay dividends. Ten years later, in 1879, the couple fired up their “two-stroke engine…for the first time” on New Year’s Eve.
Despite this success, Carl struggled with his company financially.
It is hard enough for an entrepreneur to build a product he knows the public already wants. It is nearly impossible for an entrepreneur to build a product the public doesn’t yet know they want, even though the entrepreneur already knows it will revolutionize their lifestyle in the best way possible.
Before they ever married in 1872, at one point, Bertha used her dowry to keep her husband’s company from going under.
A Novel Idea
Despite ongoing, immense public doubt, the couple forged ahead. In 1886, seven years after they got their two-stroke engine to work for the first time, Carl filed an application for a patent featuring his, “motor car with gas engine operation.”
Now came the hardest part of all, convincing the public this revolutionary mode of transportation was safe.
It’s understandable the public had their doubts. The loud machine scared the two most common sightings on the unpaved roads the Benz family test-drove their automobiles on, horses and people.
After two decades of work with her husband on his dream project, Bertha decided to show an unsuspecting public exactly what they were missing out on.
Car Repairs with Hairpins and Garters
In August 1888, three months after turning 39 years old, Bertha was in the mood for an adventure. On a hot summer day, she climbed aboard their “Model III” car along with two of her children, thirteen year old Richard and fifteen year old Eugen. They left Mannheim, Germany and headed for her hometown of Pforzheim, where it all began. The distance they’d have to travel round trip? About 130 miles.
This description highlights the unpredictable nature of Bertha’s journey with her sons:
“After more than twelve hours of driving and over 100 kilometers on mostly unpaved roads, the three actually arrived there [Pforzheim]. The circumstances of this world’s first long-distance journey in an automobile – for example, a fresh supply of petrol from a chemist’s shop – are legendary, and have gone down in the annals of automotive history. Bertha Benz and her sons therefore played a vital part in the subsequent triumphant advance of the petrol-powered automobile.”
According to many, Carl was non-the-wiser of his wife’s roadtrip. But it didn’t take long for him to find out. Soon after Bertha set sail, so to speak, newspapers got wind of her unprecedented style of travel. They began sharing as many updates as they could. According to Travel World Magazine:
“It was the first documented drive by a woman and the first road trip by anybody. She was followed by cheering crowds attracted by minute-to-minute updates telegraphed by newspapers.”
While today’s quality vehicles operate with such efficiency they border on auto-pilot, Benz’s first cars needed constant maintenance. According to Hagerty Media:
“The Motorwagen’s 954-cc, two-horsepower single-cylinder, four-stroke engine was water cooled by a complete-loss system without a radiator, so she regularly had to stop by streams and horse troughs to refill the water tank.”
The trip was full of ups and downs. But Bertha met each problem with ingenuity, coming up with unique fixes for unanticipated problems. Sometimes, she fixed things in ways only a woman could:
“The legend says that she also used a hairpin to clear out a clogged fuel line and some fabric from her garter to insulate a short-circuited spark plug wire.”
Getting lost was the least of her worries. The vehicle’s speed topped out at 14 miles per hour. So if she needed directions she simply asked those in the crowds who had gathered to view the spectacle of someone, let alone a woman, driving a horseless carriage.
What did she do for gas, you may ask?
“While the vehicle was relatively fuel-efficient, getting about 25 miles to the gallon, the fuel tank only held 1.3 gallons. If good roads were years into the future, gasoline refineries and fuel stations were decades yet to come, so Bertha stopped at the Stadtapotheke, the apothecary in Wiesloch, about half way, where she was able to purchase some ligroin, a petroleum naphtha used as a solvent and dry-cleaning fluid.”
Do you see now, the validity of my disdain over other writers’ attempts at making Mrs. Benz look like some damsel-turned-housewife?
Most of her trip was strictly travel-related:
“It took her one full day each way to negotiate the rutted roads carved by horse-drawn carriages…”
After leaving on August 5 for Pforzheim, she successfully arrived three days later safe and sound with her boys back in Mannheim.
The Woman Who “Popularized the Automobile”
Post-trip, Bertha handed over notes she made in her journal during her journey. Carl used them to refine elements of his early model vehicle. Thanks to her meticulous note-taking, he was able to make key adjustments that made his prototype “...safer and more efficient.”
On her journey back to Mannheim, the vehicle’s brake blocks became completely worn down from the mileage. So, she tracked down a cobbler who helped fasten leather strips to the breaks. In her notes, “She recognized that brakes would need a liner to prevent overheating, and suggested he add gears for climbing up and down hills.”
This discovery made her the official inventor of the ever-important brake pad.
When Bertha returned home, local newspaper coverage had turned her into a town celebrity.
Carl always gave Bertha the credit she deserved. He made it known his wife and business partner was the one who “popularized the automobile.”
Soon after her trip, national publications in Germany picked up her story, putting Benz & Co. on the map for the first time.
Bertha’s news coverage after her record-setting drive generated a wave of automobile sales for her husband. Eventually, the wave turned tidal. Now, Mercedes-Benz is one of the world’s leading automobile companies. In 2023, the company sold over 2 million vehicles.
Today, Bertha’s famous ride is honored with The Bertha Benz Memorial Route, which follows the path she took to her Mother’s house in Pforzheim on that history-making August day. The route features markers and stops commemorating Bertha, Carl, and their desire to bring engine power to people’s bumpy, smelly, laborious commutes for the first time—forever influencing the course of human advancement for good—and for the good.
In 1984, Carl Benz was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame. In 2016, Bertha Benz joined him, making them the first married couple to ever be inducted into the organization.
But none of this would have ever been possible without Bertha climbing aboard Carl’s Model III more than a century ago.
What a great story. Thanks for sharing it and telling it so well!
Great Article Rebecca! Love how well they must have worked together. And i'm sure in those days women never got enough credit for whatever they did.
This reminds me of the Biopic Marie Curie i think its on Amazon Prime. She too was dismissed as not being qualified enough as a Chemist to work with the "big boys".
Have a great day!!