If Carl Benz was the inventor of the automobile, his wife Bertha Benz was its bold champion. In August 1888, Bertha decided to silence the naysayers in an extraordinary way: she stole her husband’s Motorwagen No.3 before dawn and drove it on the world’s first long-distance car trip. Along with her teenage sons, Eugen and Richard, she sneaked the car out and embarked on a 106 km (66-mile) journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim – without Carl’s knowledge. This daring trek was filled with perils and ingenious problem-solving. Gasoline was bought in apothecary shops since fuel stations did not yet exist; at one point, when a fuel line clogged, Bertha unclogged it with her hat pin. When the wooden brakes began to fail on a downhill, she asked a cobbler to nail leather onto them, inventing the first brake pads. She even used her garter to insulate a worn ignition wire. After a day of adventure, Bertha triumphantly telegraphed Carl of their safe arrival. Her unprecedented road trip proved that the Benz automobile could handle real-world travel – climbing hills, navigating rough roads, and carrying passengers – something no one had demonstrated before. The publicity from Bertha’s exploit was immense. Skeptics who had laughed at the “devil’s wagon” now saw its promise, and orders for the Benz car began to trickle in.

By late 1888, Carl Benz sold his first cars, and the Motorwagen became the first commercially available automobile. A notable early customer was Émile Roger, a Parisian engineer who built Benz engines under license; he bought a Motorwagen and became an agent selling Benz cars in France. This international sale – including one to French automobile pioneer Émile Levassor – signaled that the automobile’s appeal knew no borders. As demand grew, Benz & Cie expanded production. In 1893, Carl introduced the Victoria, his first four-wheeled model, followed by the Benz Velo, a lightweight two-seater that became the world’s first production car with over 1,200 units built by 1901. During the 1890s, Benz & Cie. became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, as motoring enthusiasm caught on. However, success brought new competition. Innovators like Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Germany, and Henry Ford in America, were busy developing improved cars and methods to build them cheaply. By the early 1900s, Benz’s designs, while reliable, started to seem old-fashioned compared to faster, more powerful rivals. Ever the engineer at heart and cautious in business, Carl was reluctant to adopt some of the latest trends (such as front-mounted engines or new chassis styles), leading to internal tensions in his company.