One foggy August morning, as the sun was rising on the August sky over Mannheim, Germany, 39 year old Bertha quietly opened her front door and ushered her two sons, Richard and Eugen out and they scuffled towards the car. They were about to embark upon the world's first road trip. All the way from her house to see her mother's 106 km (66 miles) away.
The car in question was a Benz Patent Motorwagen- the first car in history to be able to power itself independently which her husband, Karl Benz, had spend five years building. You and I know what a big deal this was, but for some reason, Karl couldn't fathom the importance of his brainchild and refused to market it adequately. And that infuriated Bertha. So, to prove to her husband that his invention had a future, she carjacked it that morning in 1888.
Her journey was not without problems. For starters, the engine that powered the Motorwagen was a 954cc single cylinder engine which produced a rather unexciting 0.84 BHP (he could be cut some slack because it was his first time). To add to the issue, the already underpowered car, only had two gears. This meant that Richard, her younger son, had to push it up steep hills. While going up the hill was hardwork for Richard, coming down was dangerous for all of them because it turned out that the wooden brakes wore out very quickly.
Fortunately, she was a very resourceful woman. She stopped at the the next cobbler shop she saw and replaced the wood with rubber. Thus, she invented the very first brake pad. When she ran out of fuel, she stopped at an apothecary, and cleaned out their supply of ligroin, a petroleum product which was used as fuel for the Motorwagen. And when the ligroin got clogged in the fuel pipes, she unclogged it with her hairpin and used her garter as isolation material.
The people along the way displayed a wide range of reactions, from fascinated to scared. Some thought that Bertha and her children were the devil's minions. Hungry and exhausted (especially Richard), she reached her mother's well after dark. And before she tucked into bread and her mother's strawberry jam, she telegraphed Karl to inform him that she had reached safely.
Of course, she had fulfilled her mission. The news of this magnificent machine spread around the world. Seeing that his invention could become successful, Karl started work on improvement. He built the Motorwagen model II and later, the Model III, which Bertha used for her historic journey, incorporating all the developments and in 1888, the first ever automobile was sold. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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