Karl Benz, The Man Behind Mercedes-Benz

Biography Of Karl Benz
Posted by eMercedesBenz.com on September 21, 2005 at 10:15 AM CST

In a follow-up to my last post, Mercedes has just released a short  
biography on Karl Benz, detailing his various ventures in the field  
of engineering.  If you're unfamiliar with the history of Karl Benz  
or want to learn more about the history of the Mercedes-Benz brand,  
it makes for a pretty interesting read.  You can check out the full  
press release below.


OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE


Karl Benz

Karl Benz was born on November 25, 1844 in Karlsruhe where he also  
grew up, went to school and subsequently studied at the polytechnic.  
After completing his studies, Benz worked first as an intern at  
Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft (a mechanical engineering company) in  
Karlsruhe and then as a design engineer in Germany and Austria. In  
1871, he founded his first own company in Mannheim, an iron foundry  
and mechanical workshop. In the following year, he married Bertha  
Ringer with whom he had five children: Eugen, Richard, Klara, Thilde  
and Ellen.

Alongside mechanical engineering, Benz soon discovered a new field of  
activity for himself, the development of engines, and as early as  
1879 his factory presented an operational two-stroke engine. However,  
Benz left the company, meanwhile converted into a stockholding  
company, as early as 1883 because he had had too little scope for  
decisions on technical developments.

In the fall of 1883, Karl Benz established a new company, “Benz & Co.  
Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik” (Rhenish Gas Engine Factory) in  
Mannheim and turned his attention to the design of a vehicle to be  
driven by an internal combustion engine. In 1886, he was granted a  
patent on this “Motor Car” which he presented to the public the same  
year.

The inventor’s wife, Bertha Benz, used the third version of this  
motorized three-wheeler for her famous long-distance journey from  
Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888. With this courageous trip, which also  
took her through Ladenburg, the energetic lady and her sons  
demonstrated the reliability of her husband’s motor car.

By 1890, Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik had developed into Germany’s  
second-largest engine factory. Innovations such as the double-pivot  
steering for automobiles (1893) and the horizontally-opposed piston  
engine (1896) consolidated the company’s position in the budding  
market for motor vehicles. In 1903, however, Karl Benz largely  
retired from the company out of protest against the employment of  
French engineers at the Mannheim plant. They were to restore the  
competitiveness of the technically conservative Benz cars vis-à-vis  
Daimler’s Mercedes cars.

Karl Benz remained a silent partner and served as a member of the  
supervisory board from 1904. He lived to see the merger of Daimler- 
Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie. in 1926 and remained a member of  
the supervisory board of the resulting Daimler-Benz AG until his death.

Benz in Ladenburg

Karl Benz’s time in Mannheim came to an end in 1903 as he no longer  
wished to live in Mannheim after the breach with his old company. He  
first moved to Darmstadt with his family and from there to Ladenburg.

Karl Benz had come to know Ladenburg, which had been granted a town  
charter under Roman rule in 98 A.D., while he was still living in  
Mannheim. Excursions in his motor car had time and again taken the  
inventor to the scenic old town on the River Neckar. Benz not only  
held the local inn in high esteem, where he liked to stop for lunch  
and a glass of red wine from the region. Prompted by the reasonable  
prices of real estate, Karl Benz acquired farmland in 1898 as a  
possible new location for a factory. Another ten plots of land were  
added in the following months, but a new factory was still not being  
built here.

After the breach with Benz & Cie. in Mannheim, the Benz family lived  
in Darmstadt. When Karl Benz returned to the supervisory board of the  
company in 1904, he looked for a domicile closer to Mannheim.  
Initially the family moved into a flat in Ladenburg’s Bahnhofstraße  
before Karl and Bertha Benz acquired a magnificent house with a park- 
like garden on the River Neckar at a price of 48,500 Goldmarks in 1905.

In this house, built in its present-day form by brewery owner  
Leonhard, Karl and Bertha Benz lived until their deaths in 1929 and  
1944, respectively, and the estate remained the family’s property  
until 1969. In 1985, the Karl Benz House was acquired by Daimler-Benz  
AG, and today the building is the headquarters of the Gottlieb  
Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation. The ground floor rooms looking out  
onto the garden accommodate an exhibition dedicated to the  
engineering achievements of Karl Benz.

C. Benz Söhne

Despite the impressive house, the park and a garage built in the  
style of a fortified tower, Karl Benz had no wish to lead a  
pensioner’s life in Ladenburg. He commissioned architect Josef  
Battenstein with the design of a mechanical engineering factory. The  
latter was built on the plots of land on the banks of the River  
Neckar, which Benz had acquired in 1898 and 1899. The company C. Benz  
Söhne started operating in 1906. Initially, Karl Benz and his son  
Eugen built stationary engines in Ladenburg. But sales of naturally  
aspirated gas engines slumped when a growing number of companies  
switched to electric motors or diesel engines for driving their  
machinery. And so Karl Benz decided to design and build automobiles  
again.

In 1908, his second son Richard joined the Ladenburg-based company,  
and the first vehicles were supplied to customers. Buyers responded  
well to the new Benz car, and after just a few units of the 6/10 hp  
car, the 8/18 model became the first to be built in larger numbers by  
C. Benz Söhne.

The trade journal Allgemeine Automobil Zeitung assessed the future of  
the new brand positively: “So there will be two types of Benz car in  
future.” And indeed the number of cars built by C. Benz Söhne rose  
continuously, due not only to the name but also, and above all, to  
ongoing technical development. In 1913 the company introduced as many  
as three models with sleeve-valve engines.

At the time World War I broke out, the company had built some 300  
chassis and supplied them to bodybuilders. After the war, however, C.  
Benz Söhne was unable to continue on its successful course. The last  
custom-built car was completed in 1923, and in the following year,  
only two touring cars were manufactured which served as a company car  
and the Benz family’s private car, respectively. These two cars are  
today among the exhibits of the Dr. Carl Benz automotive museum.

When the company’s automotive production was discontinued, the  
factory of C. Benz Söhne was initially used for the assembly of cars  
from the Badenia brand. During World War II, the company repaired  
vehicles from different brands.

The first post-war years saw changing users of the old halls, among  
them the Mannheim-based Mercedes-Benz company-owned sales and service  
outlet which repaired customer cars here. For a while, American GMC  
army trucks were converted into civilian dump trucks in Ladenburg.

A new era began for C. Benz Söhne in the early 1950s when Carl Benz,  
the company founder’s grandson, and his brother-in-law Wolfgang Elbe  
established contacts with Daimler-Benz AG. Initially, the family- 
owned company in Ladenburg contracted work for the test department  
and the legendary racing department. At a later stage, C. Benz Söhne  
became a supplier of axle components for the commercial vehicles of  
Daimler-Benz. Today, the company is operating at a new location with  
modern buildings in Ladenburg.

It was at that point in time that classic car enthusiast Winfried A.  
Seidel grabbed the opportunity and acquired the premises with the old  
Benz halls. For the founder and owner of the Dr. Carl Benz automotive  
museum, this was a unique chance of documenting the engineering  
history of the brand in a historical setting. DaimlerChrysler AG  
supported the project and financed the restoration of the historical  
factory halls.

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