Today I decided to talk about Karl Benz and his contribution to the automobile industry. One of the pioneers and I guess some of you even drive around with your Mercedes powered by STEEM so be grateful both ways!:)
As a young man he had to face poverty, but his mother tried her best to get him a good education. Benz attended the local Grammar School in Karlsruhe and was a prodigious student. In 1853, at the age of nine, he started at the scientifically oriented Lyceum. Next, he studied at the Poly-Technical University under the instruction of Ferdinand Redtenbacher. Benz had originally focused his studies on locksmithing, but he eventually followed his father's steps toward locomotive engineering. On 30 September 1860, at age 15, he passed the entrance exam for mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, which he subsequently attended. Benz graduated 9 July 1864 aged 19.
But education alone sometimes isn't enough, right?
He designed and in 1885 built the world’s first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine. Although the original Benz car (a three-wheeled vehicle, the Motorwagen, now preserved in Munich) first ran early in 1885, its design was not patented until January 29, 1886. An important part of the Benz story is this first long distance automobile trip, where the entrepreneurial Bertha Benz, supposedly without the knowledge of her husband, on the morning of 5 August 1888, took this vehicle on a 106 km (66 mi) trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim to visit her mother, taking her sons Eugen and Richard with her. In addition to having to locate pharmacies on the way to fuel up, she repaired various technical and mechanical problems and invented brake lining. What a lady, huge respect! In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially approved as a route of industrial heritage of mankind!
Benz & Co.
Benz & Co. was founded in Mannheim in 1883 to build stationary internal-combustion engines. Until 1899 they producted racing cars and really made great progress all around.
In 1926 the Benz company merged with Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft to form Daimler-Benz, maker of Mercedes-Benz automobiles. Benz had left the firm about 1906 to organize C. Benz Söhne in Ladenburg with his sons, Eugen and Richard. The firm’s name reflected Benz’s sometimes spelling of his first name as Carl.
First Mercedes-Benz came in 1926, such an interesting story behind it. The German economic crisis worsened. In 1923 Benz & Cie. produced only 1,382 units in Mannheim, and DMG made only 1,020 in Stuttgart. The average cost of an automobile was 25 million marks because of rapid inflation. Negotiations between the two companies resumed and in 1924 they signed an "Agreement of Mutual Interest" valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, sales, and advertising—marketing their automobile models jointly—although keeping their respective brands. On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its automobiles, Mercedes-Benz, honoring the most important model of the DMG automobiles, the 1902 Mercedes 35 hp, along with the Benz name.
And today we know these monsters...
If you would like to learn more about Karl Benz or Mercedes & CO. make sure to check these links as I also did my research here and there is more cool stuff to it of course!
