I’m going to be starting a new series of blogs all about women and the roles they have played in the car industry called Fueled by Females. Women have been behind the scenes of some of the greatest moments in car history and I want to share those moments with you!
Meet one of the most incredible women in history: Bertha Benz, the woman who took the first road trip in a private, petroleum-powered car.
Bertha Ringer was born to a wealthy family in Germany in 1849. She married the now-famous Karl Benz in 1872. Benz was an incredible engineer and perfectionist but lacked money. Bertha’s dowry financially supported the family and Benz’s new company: Benz & Cie. It was during this time (1886) that the Benz Motorwagen was born.
The three-wheeled, single-cylinder, 2.5-horsepower vehicle could reach a maximum speed of 25 mph and couldn’t make it up most hills. It was revolutionary, but not everyone saw it that way. In the first few public displays, the car crashed and terrified everyone. Benz, being the perfectionist he was, took his invention and shut himself away to work on it out of the public eye. Bertha had a different idea.
Believing the public needed to see this car in action, Bertha one of the recently finished vehicles, took her two sons, and her faith in her husband’s engineering and set out on the 65-mile trip to her mother’s house. She knew her husband wouldn’t approve of the trip, so she snuck out early in the morning while Karl was still sleeping. You know that trick where you roll the car down the road before you start it, so that you don’t wake up the folks? We can probably credit Bertha with that one too. She left him a note, probably something like: “I took the boys and one of your most prized death traps to my mom’s for the weekend. Love you.”
Off they went, down the dusty, rocky, unpaved road to Grandma’s house. They ran out of fuel, battled through multiple breakdowns and brake failure. Bertha acted as a mechanic, in one instance, using her garter to repair the car’s ignition and clear the clogged fuel line with her hairpin in another. When the wooden brakes began to fail, she used that womanly wit and went to a local shoemaker and commissioned leather soles instead. Sound familiar? That’s right, she invented brake pads!
They arrived less than twelve hours later, exhausted, triumphant, and covered in dust. Bertha sent a telegram to her hubby to let him to know that she and the boys were safe, but between eye-witness reports and the press, news had already traveled back to Benz. When they returned home, the group and the carriage had traveled over 120 miles. The trip served more than the most effective marketing campaign, it also helped to improve the Motorwagen. The difficulties the group had with getting the vehicle up hills inspired Benz to add a low-range gear. He also ran with Bertha’s fantastic leather brake pads and added it to future cars.
Let’s hear it for this fantastic woman and her contribution the wonderful world of cars! #FueledbyFemales
http://jalopnik.com/meet-
http://www.history.com/news/
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