Except for a rear-mounted engine that put out a feeble .9 hp, there was little to tell between a horse carriage and the Benz Motorwagen. When it arrived in 1886 on three wheels, it was hailed as the first horseless carriage.
It has gone down in automobile history as the first car. It has another first to its credit. It is the first automobile to be taken out on a long journey. In 1888, Bertha Benz, wife of Karl Benz, who invented this odd-looking car by today’s standards, drove it from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany, covering over 190 km.
A replica of the 1886 Benz Motorwagen, made by Gedee Technical Training Institute and a key attraction at the Gedee Car Museum in Coimbatore, arrived at the city. This trip would, however, not detract from the greatness of Bertha’s.
C.S. Ananth, honorary consultant to the Gedee project to create Benz Motorwagen, says, “Bertha undertook that daunting trip when nobody trusted a vehicle that had an engine.”
According to G.D. Gopal, trustee of Gedee Car Museum, the features of the original car have been conscientiously retained. For example, the engine, just as feeble as ever, runs on benzene.
This car is one of the many Benz Motorwagen replicas that have been made at the Gedee institute.
“Last year, 21 students of the institute studied the parts of a replica that had been bought and dismantled; and then they set about making replicas of this iconic car themselves,” says Mr. Gopal.
