The Automuseum of Dr. Carl Benz
Article and Photography by Ted Wuerthner
The 2010 MBCA trip to Stuttgart announced in The Star was just too good to pass up. I had been to Stuttgart several times and enjoyed the Mercedes-Benz museums in 1977 and 2000, but the new ultra-modern structure with high-tech exhibits beckoned. Plus, in his announcement, Jim O’Sullivan, the U.S. tour leader, mentioned visits to Daimler facilities not usually open to the public.
I was especially interested in visiting the Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum in Ladenburg, an old Roman town across the autobahn from Heidelberg. I first met the museum’s future founder, Winfried A. Seidel, in 1978. He expressed a dream to establish a Carl Benz museum to honor his hometown hero.
In the 1880s, Benz & Cie.’s principal business was manufacturing and selling stationary gas engines. But during 1885 and 1886, Carl Benz conceived and invented the first gas combustion engine, featuring his design integrated with a purpose-built steel tubular chassis to produce a self-propelled vehicle. Ladenburg celebrates his accomplishment as the world’s first automobile.
Seidel’s museum dream evolved over the decades. Whenever I attended the annual Mercedes-Benz Veteranen Club Treffen in Ladenburg, I learned he had added more old Benzes to his growing collection as he planned for his museum. On a warm afternoon in October 2010, our MBCA tour’s impressive Mercedes bus pulled up to the Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum, which opened in 2006 on a main street in Ladenburg. There it was: the Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum, an official partner of the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. The Mercedes-Benz blue and white star flew on the flagpole.
The exterior (feature article image) and interior (above) of the Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum in the restored factory building in Ladenburg, Germany
We stepped inside a thoroughly refurbished former C. Benz & Sons factory, where Seidel welcomed our party and invited us to explore the museum’s displays of more than 40 historic autos, automobile history of the period, and Carl Benz artifacts. The 19,000-square-foot building is of early-20th-century industrial design, suitable to manufacture cars. A complete remodel was required after Seidel’s acquisition in 2004, including sandblasted walls, a new roof with steel support beams, modern electrical facilities, and a new wooden floor. Daimler assumed the cost of the work. The museum’s display arrangement is traditional, with two outer rows of autos and a double center aisle.
A replica of the original 1886 Patent-Motorwagen, built by Mercedes-Benz.
Our group dispersed among the autos, which range from a replica of the 1886 Patent-Motorwagen, in a special place near the museum entrance, to the last Benz auto manufactured and Mercedes-Benz brands of the post-1926 Daimler amalgamation.
My fascination was with the earliest Benz vehicles in the front row and their history: the 1885–1886 Patent-Motorwagen, the 1888 Model III, the 1892 Victoria, and the 1894 Velo. These are the vehicles that founded the European automobile industry prior to 1900.
The Patent-Motorwagen is a replica, because Benz apparently built only two, possibly three, of the original small, wire-wheeled versions. In 1906, Benz donated the sole survivor of these original versions to the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Daimler-Benz built replicas of the original 1886 version in 1986 to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Subsequently, numerous replicas have been manufactured under factory supervision and offered for sale.
The first version of the Patent-Motorwagen was Carl Benz’s inspiration for a new mode of transportation, one that would be manufactured in quantity. He combined his proprietary 1-cylinder, 4-stroke, 0.88-horsepower (at 400 rpm) engine using a horizontal flywheel with a lightweight, bicycle-influenced tubular frame of his design.
He had to solve numerous engineering challenges, including the need to invent the porcelain spark plug, to create his vehicle. Much of the development was trial and error. The first prototype was run in the summer of 1885 secretly at night, not far from the site of the museum, with his sons walking alongside. Breakdowns were frequent.
This first Patent-Motorwagen was small: a wheelbase of 4 feet, 9 inches; track (width between the wheels) of 3 feet, 11 inches; and weight of 585 pounds including the engine, with a top speed of 10 mph.
Benz patented the Motorwagen in 1886 and thought the world would come to him. By 1887, he had sold only one Patent-Motorwagen, to Emile Roger, Benz & Cie.’s French stationary motor representative.
This is when Bertha Benz made her famous decision to publicize the vehicle and to convince her husband it was ready to sell. Without his knowledge, she and their two sons made the famous 55-mile daylong trip in the little Motorwagen to her parents’ home in Pforzheim. Crowds gathered and she achieved widespread publicity for her adventure and for the vehicle.
After that first true test-drive, Benz incorporated her suggestion of a third gear to climb hills, and made other improvements to his larger, more robust Model III.
The Benz Model III from 1889 is the oldest known original and running motorcar.
The museum’s prize exhibit is an 1888 Model III Patent-Motorwagen. The oldest original, running automobile in the world, it is on loan from the Science Museum in London. The vehicle, believed to have been sold by Emile Roger, is the first gasoline motor vehicle of any kind operated in England. The Model III, introduced at the September 1888 Munich Engineering Exposition, generated a great deal of excitement both when on display and when traveling the streets of Munich. Benz received a gold medal for his invention of a new motor vehicle.
The Benz Model III had wooden spoke wheels. The rear two were bound with steel bands and the front single steering wheel lined with solid rubber. The vehicle’s wheelbase measured 5 feet, 2 inches and the track 3 feet, 9 inches. Top speed was 12 mph, nominal weight 794 pounds. Horsepower increased from 1.5 to 3.0 over the production run. Twenty-five of the Model III three-wheelers were sold from 1888 to 1892.
The Victoria, built in 1891, used a new steering gear and vertical flywheel.
The Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum has a remarkable example of Benz’s next model, the Victoria. It was his first four-wheel model that used his new patent steering knuckle and a vertical flywheel. The Victoria was offered for sale in 1891. The Victoria was Benz’s largest vehicle to date: 10 feet, 6 inches long by 5 feet, 5 inches, with a wheelbase of 5 feet, 5 inches and track of 4 feet, 5 inches. The engine remained one cylinder, with bore and stroke increased over the production run from 130 x 130mm to 150 x 165mm and horsepower from 3 to 5. Top speed was 15 mph.
The little Velo followed in 1894 as Benz’s low-priced offering, soon becoming the world’s first production automobile. The Velo design was based on the larger Victoria, but lighter while sturdy and capable of withstanding hard wear. The Velo helped expand the European motorcar market.
This four-wheeler was 7 feet, 5 inches long; 4 feet, 1 inch wide; and weighed 617 pounds in its simplest configuration. Engine horsepower increased from 1.5 to 2.75 over the eight-year production run. Top speed was 12 mph.
The popularity of the Victoria and the Velo, plus several associated models, caused Benz & Cie. to expand manufacturing facilities. By 1899, Benz & Cie. produced a total of 2,000 vehicles, was the world’s largest automobile maker, and had vehicles in use all over the world.
The Parsifal, offered by Benz in 1902, a more modern version of his motorcar.
The Parsifal model on display represented a dramatic new direction for Benz & Cie. The Parsifal series introduced in 1902 was not a Carl Benz design, but created by a French team brought in by management to modernize the Benz product line. Particular breaks from the past included vertical twin-cylinder front-mounted engines with a propeller shaft to replace chain drives. Other features included a 3-speed gearbox with reverse and a strengthened pressed steel frame. Over the production run, 4-cylinder engines were added to increase horsepower. Top speed was 37 mph.
I caught up with our group as they became intrigued with Benz’s workshop and office, which included his watch, old textbooks, a lithographic limestone with which he printed his business cards, and other personal items that reflected his presence. Dr. Ing. Carl Benz resigned in bitterness from his firm on April 21, 1903. He opposed the company’s – and the auto industry’s – new direction, which emphasized power and competitive racing. His vision of inventing a new mode of transportation, and manufacturing it in quantity, had been achieved and his place as an auto pioneer firmly established.
The Parsifal’s success permitted Benz & Cie. to invest in new models and broaden further into commercial trucks and coaches.
A late Benz race car is on display, though Benz didn’t like race cars.
The museum has wonderful examples of Benz models from 1902 through the ’20s, including 2- and 4-cylinder engines of increasing displacement and horsepower. Several interesting racers are in the center aisle. The collection also features a 1925 Benz 10/35 PS Tourenwagen, the last Benz produced before the merger with Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in 1926.
Winfried Seidel (left), the museum’s founder, with Ted Wuerthner.
The museum boasts selected additional Mercedes-Benz vehicles of the 1930s as well as post-World War II models.
Seidel was at the entrance to say goodbye as our group began to leave. As I walked by, I stopped to ask him, “Why is Carl Benz’s name sometimes spelled with a ‘C’ as it is on the Museum wall and others with a ‘K’ as it is on the bust in the foyer?
His smiling reply was, “He was born and died ‘Karl’ (on his birth and death certificates) but he lived ‘Carl.’”
The MBCA group on the 2010 fall German tour led by Jim O’Sullivan.
October 2010 MBCA Stuttgart Tour
On our 2010 trip, from our base in Stuttgart, tour leader Jim O’Sullivan arranged private, docent-led trips to:
- Mercedes-Benz Museum
- Gottlieb Daimler Greenhouse Workshop
- AMG Engineering at Affalterbach
- An independent 280SL restoration shop
- Daimler Advanced Engine Plant
- Development Center and Test Track
- Sinfelfingen Automobile Factory
- The Mercedes-Benz Classic Center
- Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim
- The Dr. Carl Benz AutoMuseum
Note: Tour sites may differ each year. For information on the 2011 tours, contact Jim O’Sullivan at [email protected] or call (617) 879-0017.