The Cradle of the Automobile, and of Its Inventor

Carl Benz, known as the inventor of the first automobile, was born on November 25, 1844 in the small town of Mühlburg, now a suburb in the west of Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe claims Benz as one of its most famous sons. But strictly speaking, Mühlburg was still an independent municipality at the time of his birth. Only in 1886, the same year when Benz constructed his first automobile, Mühlburg became part of Karlsruhe.

The exact location of his birth had long been unknown but recent research shed light on the secret. Benz was born in the inn named “Stadt Karlsruhe” in Rheinstraße 22 where his mother, Josephine Vaillant, was working as a servant. Only later ater she married his father, the locomotive driver Johann Georg Benz.

The inhabitants of Mühlburg are quite proud of “their son” and the fact that he was born in Mühlburg not Karlsruhe. The house is gone, it was demolished when the street was extended in the 1950s. Nowadays Rheinstraße is a modern shopping street and a busy main road. However, now that the location is known, a memorial has been installed over the summer of 2011 to commemorate Benz's origins. A quite unusual and imaginative one, in fact...
Allow the writer of this piece to proudly mention that it is located just a 10 minute walk from her home.

Carl Benz has received his permanent parking spot in front of the modern shop building which is now Rheinstraße 22. A reconstruction of his first automobile of 1886 - simplified in order not to encourage vandalism and without engine, i.e. not functional - has been built. It is parked on the pavement in the street, and it even received its own parking sign. The rebuilt automobile soon became popular with the children of the quarter, and not only the children.

On a board the story is explained, there is also a photo of the original inn house. And a bench to sit and rest and admire!

Much to the misfortune of Karlsruhe’s pride, the young engineer Carl Benz moved, after graduating from Karlsruhe Polytechnicum, to Mannheim where he opened his first workshop. He married a brave and self-confident young lady named Bertha who supported him not only with her dowry but also with encouragement and practical ideas. The couple had five children.

Despite economical troubles, his dream of building a ‘horseless carriage’ never left him. In 1885 Carl succeeded in completing his first auto-mobile vehicle with a four-stroke engine. It is reported to have been driven in Mannheim in the summer of 1885 and received a patent in January 1886. Nevertheless, the world had little trust and little interest in buying Benz’s strange vehicle and the business was going downhill.

Bertha felt she had to interfere. Allegedly without her husband’s knowledge, she and her two teenage sons took the Motorwagen out on its first long-distance drive to prove its reliability and usefulness. Their destination was Pforzheim, where Bertha’s mother lived. The distance is 104 kms or 65 miles. They arrived at nightfall and proved their success by sending a telegram to Karl. The following day, they returned. Ingenious Bertha coped with various repairs along the way and added a couple of useful features.

The route they took has recently been marked as “Bertha Benz Memorial Route”. A pharmacy in Wiesloch, where Bertha bought supply of a special solvent needed as fuel, claims fame as the world’s first ever filling station.

This was the start of an overwhelming success story. Carl Benz’s name lives on in a world-famous brand: Mercedes-Benz.

Ladenburg car museum in the original factory halls
The "Dr." is, by the way, a Doctor honoris causa that the Technical University of Karlsruhe granted their former student.

The business in Mannheim expanded. In 1906, the family founded another car factory named C. Benz Söhne in nearby Ladenburg. Carl and Bertha bought a villa on the outskirts of the town and adjacent real estate along the bank of Neckar river, where the factory was installed.

In the backyard of the villa, Carl had built a little tower that looked as if it was a romantic leftover of some fortification, very much to the liking of the era of historism. This building served as garage for his car. Local tradition claims that this was the first ever car garage in the world. Upstairs, Benz had a studio that he used until his death in 1929. Nowadays it is the seat of a local automobile club.

Unlike the workshop and factory in Mannheim, the Ladenburg factory buildings have been preserved, and turned into a car museum.

A visit to Ladenburg’s picturesque old town (highly recommended!) can easily be combined with a visit to this testimony of early automobile history. The original factory halls show a display of Benz and later Mercedes-Benz cars from all eras, including race cars, motorbikes, tractors... The display also includes a few other car brands and items to visualize the spirit on the roads of the respective era.

Overview

Recalling the predecessor, the gas motor factory in Mannheim

Mercedes race cars

Hanomag Mäxchen, the car of young people in the 1920s

1930s to 1950s models

Mercedes 300, the luxury car of the Adenauer era

... those were the times when cars still had faces!

As usual, I had the wombats with me. After paying the small fee for the photo permit, I politely enquired. I encountered a staff member who was very fond of my plushies. Some of the following are her settings, not mine! Luckily the boss was out of house that day, she said.

Russell receives instructions how to drive the legendary Mercedes Silver Arrow