BENZ PATENT MOTOR CAR – year 1885/86

Manufacturer: Benz & Co., Rhenish gas engine factory, Mannheim, Germany

It appeared in the commercial register of the city of Mannheim in 1885 r. the name of the new company - Benz & Co., Rhenish gas engine factory. Company partner Carl Benz began building a travel vehicle, which was to be powered by a gas engine. For this purpose, he used a three-wheeled chassis with spoked wheels and rubber rims. Industrial two-stroke engine, produced in his factory, he had just 120 do 180 RPM, which was not enough to start any vehicle. Benz therefore built a single-cylinder four-stroke engine with power 0,55 kW (0,75 KM) by 400 RPM. Engine with displacement 950 cm3 had valves instead of a spool, in addition, battery ignition and recirculation cooling. Placed between the rear wheels, it had a flywheel arranged horizontally. There was only one small wheel in front, easy to drive. Drive, similar to a bicycle, carried two chains. The vehicle weighed 263 kg and developed an average speed 16 km/h. In the fall 1885 r. Benz did a test drive with the world's first car, jokingly named Benzine, and on 29 January 1886 r. his company received the first patent for a vehicle with a gas engine.

Thanks to Emil Roger, Parisian representative of Benz industrial engines, Benz vehicles became more famous in France than in Germany. Benza area, Mrs. Berta, and two sons, They concluded, that Patent-Motorwagen should also be popularized in Germany. One morning quietly, so as not to wake my father, they pulled Benzine out of the shed, they started the engine and went to the distant fr 90 km Phorzheim, where their grandmother lived. The 15-year-old Eugeniusz was sitting in the driver's seat, his mother next to him, followed by 14-year-old Ryszard. Carl Benz received a telegram that evening: “Happily in Phorzheim!”

At the Munich industrial exhibition in 1888 r. an improved second Patent-Motorwagen won the gold medal. Benz drove his vehicle on the streets of Munich with the world's first driving license, put out 1 of August 1888 r. by the Baden District Office.

In the years 1888-1893 it was produced 15 copies of this vehicle. The original copy of the first Patent-Motorwagen is kept at the Daimler-Benz Museum in Stuttgart-Unterturkheim.