04/24/2025
Karl Benz (of Mercedes-Benz fame) is well known for being an automobile pioneer. As his business partner, his wife Bertha Benz also deserves accolades, as well as a more adventurous automotive claim to fame. In August 1888, Bertha and her teenage sons secretly embarked on the first long-distance automobile journey when they took Karl's motorized vehicle, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, without his knowledge. Bertha left a note for Karl, and took the kids to visit her mother, traveling about 60 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany. Along the way, she improvised necessary repairs — including using a hat pin to unclog a carburetor — and stopped at a pharmacy in Wiesloch to fuel up with Ligroin, a cleaning agent that worked as fuel. The trip was a success, and proved the automobile was on its way to being road-ready for the masses. Bertha’s road trip route was commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route in 2008, and in 2016, she was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.