FIRST WOMAN AT THE WHEEL

We all know that Karl Benz was the inventor of the automobile. However, it is not so widely known that, until August 1, 1888, nobody, including Karl Benz, had made a long-distance journey by car. The credit for that goes to his intrepid wife, Bertha Benz. This is the story of a drive Bertha embarked upon, the first time that anyone drove more than 25 miles.

Bertha had been very supportive of her husband’s efforts in developing a ‘horseless carriage’ ever since they were engaged. However, much to her frustration, her husband never risked taking the car too far out of Mannheim, where they lived. Bertha knew that to project the pioneering self-propelled vehicle as a viable alternative to the horse-drawn carts and carriages of the day, it had to demonstrate its capability over long distances.

So, on that fateful morning in August, Bertha, 43, then a mother of four, left a note that she was going to Pforzheim where her mother lived. She took her sons, Eugen, 15 and Richard, 14, with her. What she did not mention in the note was that she would be travelling in Karl’s three-wheeled car. Not wishing to wake Karl up, the trio pushed the car out of Benz’s workshop-cum-garage and beyond the block before starting the raucous 1660 cc, 2.5 hp(at 500 rpm) single-cylinder engine. And so they set off for Pforzheim. But there was a glitch; they didn’t know the way.

They travelled across the Neckar river to Weinheim. From there, they steered south to Heidelberg. The simple cooling system of the car required topping up with water every now and then. The carburettor doubled as a fuel tank too, but could only hold 4.5 litres of ‘ligroin’(a petroleum distillate used as a solvent), on which the car ran. By the time they reached Wiesloch, via Heidelberg, they were very low on fuel.

To buy ligroin, Bertha stopped at the local ‘Apotheke’, or chemist’s shop, which can justifiably claim to be the first filling station in the world. They took more supplies at the towns of Langenbrucken and Bruschal and continued to Durlach. At one point, the fuel line became blocked, so Bertha removed the obstruction with her hatpin. An ignition fire also short-circuited, so she made an insulator out of one of her garters. The ingenuity of the fairer sex! From Durlach, they turned into the hilly Black Forest region. That is when the inadequacy of the car’s two-speed, belt-driven gearing system became apparent. The lower gear was just not adequate enough to take it up the inclines. The solution was simple: two of them got out and pushed, while one steered.

After cresting the hill, it was time to descend. The block brakes working only on the rear wheels just about managed to slow the car down, but the brakes wore off pretty fast. So Bertha stopped by at a cobbler’s to get the blocks lined with leather. By sundown, they arrived at Pforzheim, having covered 62.5 miles(100 km), or about half their round trip. Bertha had made her point.

Mercedes-Benz is still doing rather well.

[ Sources: An article by Abhijit Mitra, Business World, Jan. 9, 2006 and the website: www.autoland.am]