Bertha Benz’s Day Out

With thanks to Peter Roberts, from his History of the Motor Car

The world’s first long-distance motoring “joy ride” reads like something from a Disney story – almost too good to be true – and for many years was doubted as historic fact for this reason. However, researchers confirmed that Bertha Benz and two of her children, Richard and Eugen, did indeed prove the car, in no small way, one Sunday in 1888. They had, by then, often been out for an evening spin along the road from Mannheim to Weinheim, about 6km (4miles) but had never tested the car over a longer route.

Secretly, mother and sons set off early, while father Karl Benz was away, heading for the neighbouring town of Pforzheim. Their journey had its problems: replenishing water, finding an apothecary for petroleum fuel, pushing the car up the hills of the region, persuading a cobbler to make a new leather brake block, and using Frau Benz’s garter as a replacement rubber insulator.

The assertion that Frau Benz solved a fuel blockage with one of her hair pins – thus coining the phrase “Hair pin Benz” is a myth from Wales.

All these obstacles were overcome and they sighted the lights of Pforzheim at dusk. They had travelled over 100km (60miles), the first ever long-distance day trip in a motor car. Curiously, this epic was never reported in the German press, although today it is recognised as a historic watershed in the chronicle of the automobile.

An annual run takes place every year in Germany to celebrate this historic occasion. The museum have a model of that first Benz.