Bertha Benz "The untold story"

The untold story of Bertha Ringer Benz

Bertha Benz

Name : Bertha Ringer, (Bertha Benz) after marriage
Born : 3 May 1849
Pforzheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Confederation
Died : 5 May 1944 (aged 95)
Ladenburg, Nazi Germany
Nationality : German
Spouse(s) : Karl Benz (m.
20 July 1872 – 4 April 1929, his death)
Children : 5
Popularity & inventions :

1. First person in history to drive an automobile over a long distance
2. Inventor of the world's first pair of brake pads.

 3. First person to use a fuel station
 4. First violator of high-way rules
 5. First driver of the longest one-way road         trip

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Bertha Ringer, was born into a wealthy family from Pforzheim, southwestern German town. She had been her husband's failing iron construction company saviour using part of her dowry to invest in his company two years prior to her marriage to Karl Benz. 

On 20 July 1872, Bertha Ringer married Karl Benz and lost her legal power to act as an investor, according to German law. Although Karl Benz continued to use her dowry as financial support after moving to a new manufacturing venture Benz & Cie after he lost his construction company. Unlike his previous construction company failure, the new manufacturing company proved successful and Karl was able to focus his attention on working on his first horseless carriage and finished it in December 1885. Bertha made great contributions to the design of the Motorwagen by adding wire insulation and inventing leather brake pads to supplement the wooden brakes when they failed. In addition to her contributions to the machine’s design, Bertha helped finance the development of the Motorwagen. She was not allowed to be named as an inventor on the patent at that time due to the patent law.

After the invention, Karl Benz was unable to market his lifelong dream successfully and this lead to Bertha's frustration seeing her husband giving up on his dream and privately cruising in his first world's real automobile.

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On 5 August 1888, some said (12 August) Courageous Bertha Benz 39-year-old that time puts law into her own hands to prove to her husband who had failed in successfully marketing their invention in which they have both invested heavily on to the general public.  Although the stated purpose of the trip was to visit her mother in Pforzheim. Bertha decided not to inform her husband about the trip in person but left him a letter and took to road and left Mannheim around dawn with her two teenage sons Richard and Eugen, thirteen and fifteen years old respectively. With Bertha being the driver and automobile mechanic on their way. 

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On their way, they ran out of fuel at some point and needed to refill their tankless motor with only a 4.5-litre supply of petrol in the carburetor, she had to source for another option in "ligroin", and the only place to get this is from chemist so she stopped in Wiesloch at the city pharmacy to purchase the fuel, and so this is how the chemist in Wiesloch became the first fuel station in the world.

She also had to clean a blocked fuel line with the pin of her hat when it got clogged and insulates with her garter. She pulled over at a blacksmith's shop to help mend a chain at one point. When the the wooden brake started to fail Benzes visited a cobbler to install leather pad, making the world's first pair of brake pads.

The car's 0.88-horsepower, some (2.5 horsepower) engine is not enough to move uphill inclines and Eugen and Richard often had to push the vehicle up steep roads and also had to employ an evaporating cooling system to cool the engine due to the water supply difficulties.

The trio finally reached Pforzheim that evening and Karl was sent a message of save arrival and stayed for several days before setting out for a return trip. In other to gain more publicity by introducing the invention to more communities of people they had to take a different return route back to Mannheim.

She reported every issues they faced on the trip to her husband on their safe return for Karl to improvement on. Few months later the couple started to receive orders and became the biggest sole factory at the time.

Later Benz & Cie Benz & Cie formed partnership with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach’s company to form Daimler-Benz, then Mercedes-Benz.

Without permission of the authorities, Bertha became the first person to drive an automobile a significant distance of about 106 km (66 mi).

Karl and Bertha (Benz)

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Karl Benz wrote the following in his memoirs: "Only one person remained with me in the small ship of life when it seemed destined to sink. That was my wife. Bravely and resolutely she set the new sails of hope."

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