Who really invented the motorcar? Forget about all the wannabes. Forget about all the poseurs. Instead, let’s concentrate on the two men who really were first.
Both were German, and both were practical innovators – Karl Benz of Mannheim and Gottlieb Daimler of Cannstatt. Not together, mind you, but quite independent of one another, both could claim to have invented the motorcar as we know it – way back in 1886.
They were, of course, inventing, not merely refining, which explains why their original products – a tricycle from Benz and a spidery horseless-carriage from Daimler – were utterly different. It would be years, in fact, before they, and the world of motoring in general, began to agree on what a car should really look like.
Because of that, there are really two streams to this story – a divergence that would remain separate until the two marques came together in the 1920s.
Pioneers
For Benz, it all came together in 1885–1886, when his legendary three-wheeled Patentwagen first stuttered to life. As Karl Ludvigsen has made clear in the parallel feature, he struggled to get started in the 1870s but finally began to build two-stroke gas engines, eventually mounting one on a three-wheeler layout. That first gasoline-powered automobile ran in the Benz factory workshops in 1885, and was seen in public from 1886.
Although little of its layout carried forward into the 20th century, it deserves study. Built around a light tubular chassis frame – with huge rear wheels running solid tires and only one, steerable, front wheel – it boasted a horizontal, water-cooled, two-stroke single-cylinder engine behind the two seats, driving the wheels by chain and belt. The 1,691cc engine produced 1.5 horsepower and allowed up to 10 mph. Benz began making replicas almost at once, with examples shown at the Munich Exhibition in 1888 and the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889. After that, he could call himself a car manufacturer and eventually abandon other activities.
In the meantime, Daimler had been making his own way in life, first with Otto und Langen in Deutz, then on his own with Wilhelm Maybach, building stationary engines. Daimler and Maybach studied gasoline engines, then in 1883–1884 took out a patent that made “high-speed” (750 rpm!) four-stroke engines practicable.
The first self-propelled Daimler-Maybach machine was their crude motorized bicycle of 1885, but within months Daimler had purchased a carriage (built to be horse-drawn), fashioned a 1.5-brake-horsepower, single-cylinder engine, and mounted it in the center of the frame, where it drove the rear wheels through exposed gears. It even had a crude type of transmission differential gear, incorporating slipping leather discs. The original machine looked like – and actually was – a “horseless carriage,” which became a generic term for early cars for some time to come. It seems to have made its first journeys in 1886.
These two events define the date at which, to most historians’ satisfaction, the development of four-wheeler motorcars truly began, 125 years ago this year.
Production Machines
Because it was still illegal to use motor-driven machines on German highways (to prevent agricultural steam-engine owners from driving on the roads, though this situation would soon change), both pioneers had all kinds of trouble with the authorities. But Benz and Daimler both began to prosper by selling cars in France. Daimler also continued building stationary engines, and Benz began building four-wheeled cars from 1891. It was because of the German authorities that French manufacturers took the sales lead in the 1890s, though both Benz and Daimler continued to refine their products (some of them, of course, to be license-built).
After introducing the bulky Victoria models in 1893 and the smaller Velocipede types in 1894, Benz production rose to several hundred per year (per year, please note, for motoring was still a rather exclusive activity), while, some miles away, twin-cylinder Daimler Phoenix types also made their mark.
In the last years of the 19th century, therefore, the two companies expanded, and operated, in different ways. Except that they were now four-wheelers, Benz stuck to the layout of its original machines, persisting with rear engines, and increased sales to 572 cars in 1899 and passing the 600-per-year mark in 1900. Benz developed an air-cooled, twin-cylinder, horizontally opposed engine by 1897, but as the new century dawned, Benz still had not revolutionized the styling of its automobiles, and the company’s products were thus beginning to look old-fashioned.
Daimler, on the other hand, was more proactive, and seemingly more inventive in the expansion of its business. As described above, not only did the cars become license-built in other countries, but they were also modernized and made much more powerful. It was during this time that Daimler adopted the “Systeme Panhard” with a front engine, central gearbox, and rear-wheel drive. Then, from 1897, inquiries from an Austrian distributor, Emil Jellinek, led to the evolution of a 23-horsepower model that sported a water-cooled, 4-cylinder engine.
This was the tragic period in which Daimler’s health deteriorated, and he died in 1900. Maybach became the leading figure in the company, and Jellinek influenced the birth of a new brand of motorcar: the Mercedes.
Three Rivals
This could get complicated. As Jellinek’s influence on Daimler grew – and his daughter Mercedes gave her name to the new cars – Benz struggled to keep up with its rivals. Not only was the new Mercedes brand more stylish, and technically more advanced, than any other car, but it was also more powerful. With the new brand, Benz had been left behind by a complete generation, and would spend the next two decades playing catch-up.
Even so, there were great changes afoot. Accordingly, and for reasons of clarity, I ought to keep the story of these brands separate – for a few more years, at least.
Mercedes
After seeing a Daimler driver killed in 1900 when a Phoenix race car rolled over, Jellinek urged Daimler to build a new type of car with a lowered chassis and a longer wheelbase – you might even call it the world’s first sports car – for 1901, so he could enter it in the Nice Speed Week. Jellinek negotiated to buy 36 of them, to sell them in several territories, and, most lovingly, to christen them “Mercedes.” Daimler agreed. The first cars soon shrugged off unreliability problems, then dominated the Nice Speed Week in March 1901.
Complete with a 6-liter (364 cubic inches), 35-horsepower, 4-cylinder engine, a 4-speed manual gearbox, and a chain drive to the rear wheels, these original cars set new trends in automotive, and sporting, design, which Mercedes never relinquished. Not only did they look good, but they were also fast. At Nice, one car achieved 53.5 mph in the sprints, completed the La Turbie hill climb at 31.9 mph, and averaged 36.1 mph over a grueling 244 miles to Aix and back.
It was no wonder that the secretary of the Automobile Club de France summed it up by writing, “We have entered the Mercedes era.”
Some of the 35-horsepower racer’s successors were winners, but even though a few were not, the important fact remained that all proved to be real trendsetters, prompting the world of motoring to follow them as best they could. After the 35-horsepower racer came the 40-horsepower racer of 1902, followed by the amazing 60 of 1903. The 60 had a 65-horsepower, 9,292cc (567 CID) engine, complete with overhead intake, side exhaust valves, and – except for a lack of suspension shock absorbers – a neatly integrated chassis layout of a type that would still seem familiar even 30 years later. With a top speed of more than 70 mph, it was as sensational then as a 300SL Gullwing would become 50 years later.
Although the 90 of 1903 and the gargantuan 120 (14,065cc/858 CID engine) were not as astounding as the earlier types, Mercedes had established a trend that its rivals were obliged to follow. Not only that, but more civilized road-car types – the Mercedes Simplex models, some with elegant sedan or even limousine coachwork – also sold well. By 1905, there had been so much development that 18/22, 28/32, 40/45, and 60/70 (the first figure referring to a “nominal” power output, the second figure to the actual peak output) models were all on the market.
As happened so often in those pioneering days, motor racing drove development of road-going high-performance cars. The new cars were fastest in the Paris-Vienna road race of 1902, and won the Gordon Bennett Race of 1903 in Ireland, driven by Camille Jenatzy, who also took second in that race in 1904 in Germany.
By 1907, the Mercedes range spanned 20 horsepower to 70 horsepower, with all the cars evolutions of the original type. Commercially, of course, this made a great deal of sense, as Mercedes was now seen as the trendsetter for all such big Grand Touring cars.
More big changes, however, were on the way in 1908. Not only did Mercedes adopt shaft drive to the rear wheels on road cars, but it also won the 1908 Grand Prix (on a rough road circuit at Dieppe, France). This achieved the height of its ambition, so a withdrawal from motorsports, to regroup and rethink, was nearly inevitable.
The 1908 Grand Prix car – complete with Maybach-type 135-brake-horsepower, 12.8-liter (781 CID), 4-cylinder engine – was a technical tour de force. Even let down by many punctures (no fault of the car, or the tires, by the way), Christian Lautenschlager still averaged 69 mph in a very long race, beating Benz, Fiat, Panhard, Renault, and many other cars along the way.
Daimler
Although Jellinek may not have realized the effect the cars he commissioned would have on the parent company, he must have been gratified – flattered, even – to see what happened.
As far as Daimler was concerned, the popularity of the new 35-brake-horsepower Mercedes, and the fact that a commercial agreement with Panhard-Levassor meant that Daimler-manufactured cars sold in France could not carry the “Daimler” badge, meant that the Daimler-badged cars were now virtually unsalable. Faced with such commercial realities, Daimler therefore dropped the “Daimler” badge on private cars, although the parent company would continue, and the badge Daimler badge would be carried only on commercial vehicles.
Now for the confusion: Daimlers continued to be built under license in Britain, but that company soon became independent of the German brand. Many years later, Jaguar acquired the business, and the Daimler name is carried on some Jaguar models to this day.
Benz
So what was Benz to do? Its existing turn-of-the-century models were looking out-of-date even before the first Mercedes arrived, but afterward there was no doubt about it. Sales sagged to a mere 172 in 1903, but help was at hand. Benz had already imported the latest shaft-driven Renault from France, learned from it, and soon launched the Benz Parsifal, a twin-cylinder, front-engined car. Although it still looked too upright and staid when compared with the Mercedes, it eventually gained a market. Shaft and chain drive were both available, a 4-cylinder engine soon hit the market, and by 1905 the company had swung back from the brink.
Benz now matched Mercedes on all fronts, with road cars of up to 60 horsepower and a thriving motor-racing program. Both were already leading German car makers, both were building worldwide reputations, and both were aiming for the same wealthy, and competition-minded, clientele. The miracle was that both concerns stayed afloat, financially, in that time.
By 1908, indeed, Benz was not only back on equal terms with Mercedes in the marketplace, but its engineering also had caught up, embracing shaft drive on all but their chain-driven 1908 Grand Prix car.
The GP car, with a newly designed 150-horsepower, 15.1-liter (921 CID), 4-cylinder engine finished second and third at Dieppe. Similar cars were sent to the United States in 1909, where David Bruce-Brown broke sprint records at Daytona Beach at 115 mph, and Barney Oldfield took the world’s standing-start “mile” record at Indianapolis.
This, truly, marked the beginning of the colorful age of colossal competition cars, and neither Benz nor Mercedes was ready to give way to its rival.
The key characteristic of the 1886 Patentwagen is that it was self-propelled by a gasoline engine. Mounting the flywheel horizontally for stability, Benz transferred power to the wheels through 90-degree gears to a shaft that also operated the timing cam.
The cam controlled the ignition and exhaust valve. Gasoline vapor rising from within the fuel tank was sucked into the piston on the intake stroke and ignited with an electric spark plug. A belt from the engine turned a shaft connected to the wheels by chain drive.
Daimler’s 1886 carriage was little more than a test-bed for the smallest version of his 1-cylinder engine but accomplished the same goals as the Benz-patented tricycle.
Key differences are that this engine used a glow plug rather than spark ignition and had an internal vertical flywheel connected to the wheels by a differential and gears. With the engine mounted in the center, the vehicle required two people to operate, one controlling the steering and brakes, and the other controlling the fuel flow and mixture adjustment.
By 1894, Benz had developed a basic chassis that he would use for another eight years, adapting it to a variety of different body configurations. The first version was the Velocipede, or Velo, “Comfortable” (shown here) which incorporated a number of innovations. The engine still had an external horizontal flywheel, which was now driven by opposed horizontal cylinders, transmitting power to the rubber-tired wheels through a belt that could be shifted to either of two different diameter cylinders on the driveshaft, connected in turn to the rear wheels with a differential and cogs. Steering was by a tiller, but now with the front wheels mounted on kingpins, connected to the steering gear by tie rods, very similar to the modern system.
Though first to market with serial production models, Benz focused its innovations on traditional carriage-based designs for far too long. The Benz Mylord Victoria was built from 1899 to 1901 with a chassis not far removed from the Velo of 1894, with rear-mounted, opposed-two-cylinder engine, two-geared clutchless transmission, and tiller steering to kingpin-mounted wheels. The elegant body could be converted from enclosed carriage to canopied Phaeton to open Victoria.
Even by 1899, Benz was still clinging to the rear-engine and tiller steering, even in this race car.
The 1900 Daimler Phoenix race car followed the Panhard system with radiator, engine, transmission, and drive wheels from front to back. However, it was still high and unwieldy.
At the urging of Emil Jellinek to produce a longer, lower, and wider model for higher-speed stability and safety, Daimler introduced a new design for the Nice races in 1901. By 1902, Daimler was producing (and licensing production of) the Mercedes Simplex (“simplex” because of its simpler, lighter engine) shown here, with essentially all the attributes of the modern automobile. Benz would struggle to regain a competitive position, not catching up until 1905.