Car History Legends: Internal Combustion Innovator Karl Benz
Karl Benz is the father of the car and the auto industry. How did he go from being an inventor to the cofounder of Mercedes-Benz?
Written by Andrew Koole
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
When we think of
car history
, the first name that comes up for most Americans is Henry Ford, the man who gave us affordable motorized transportation with the Model T. But before Ford, internal combustion-powered vehicles were already making their way onto roads in Europe and North America thanks to the founder of another auto manufacturing empire—Karl Benz.
After inventing the internal combustion engine car, Karl Benz joined another German company, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, to start the brand we now know as
Mercedes-Benz
. Who is Karl Benz?
Born in 1844, Karl (or Carl) Benz was raised by his mother—his father, a locomotive driver, died when Karl was only two. Despite being poor, Josephine Vaillant made sure her son had a good education. Karl’s studies narrowed toward science already when he was nine years old.
That foundation eventually led him to become a mechanical engineer, and by 1879, he had built his first two-stroke engine. In the following years,
Biography.com
says he invented the spark plug, gear shift, carburetor, clutch, and many other car parts we still use today. By 1885, he’d completed the first motor car, selling his invention under his company Benz & Cie. With help from his wife Bertha, he improved on his motor car, producing the Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 before the end of the century.
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How Benz & Cie. became Mercedes-Benz
Karl Benz might’ve been the first to patent a gas-powered car, but he quickly had to deal with competition. His earliest legitimate rival was Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG), which was founded in 1890.
Its founder, Gottlieb Daimler, died in 1900, but the man who took over, Wilhelm Maybach, along with entrepreneur Emil Jellinek, built the first Mercedes engine that same year, naming it after Jellinek’s daughter. They competed with Benz for sales and speed in the following decades.
But after World War I, Germany fell into a financial crisis. To survive, Benz merged his company with Daimler to create Daimler-Benz. All of the new company’s cars would fall under the label Mercedes-Benz. The car brand’s parent company is still called DMG.
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