Karl Benz- First Engines/Car

The book ‘A Technical History of the Motorcar’ compared to, the Daimler & Benz: The Complete History, is more informative about Karl Benz as a person and how he got to the place he was. It tells me that by the age of 20 he had an excellent technical education and his first job was at a local engineering works helping to build locomotives. This helps to understand how he really started in the motorcar business and tells you more about him as a person. Whereas the ‘Daimler & Benz’ book doesn’t look at how he started it goes straight in to look at his first three-wheeled carriage with a single cylinder, which according to that book was a phenomenon. Obviously this brings a lot to the understanding of his first car and gives an opinion that it was a very important part in his career, however we can see from the ‘Technical History of the Motorcar’ that Benz didn’t have it that easy and he went through a lot of different things before he actually created this design in 1885.

The ‘Technical History of the Motorcar’ book tells us that Benz worked on a two-stroke engine charging the working cylinder by air and gas pumps, because the four-stroke was covered by the Otto patent, although the engine itself was successful Benz could not finance further expansion by himself. To me I believe that this an important part to the development of the motorcar but the ‘Daimler & Benz’ book does not mention this aspect of Benz’s career, this may be because at first he could not continue but in 1882 he founded with the help of two partners. I think that this shows that the ‘Daimler & Benz’ book is pretty much only trying to show the initial successful points to his career but to get a full understanding we need to know the low points as well which is why the ‘Technical History of the Motorcar’ book is more useful and brings more understanding to the design.

It is also more useful because it tells us that in the 1860’s Benz bought a bike and convinced himself that personal transport would be power driven and have three preferably four wheels. This is left out of the other book but comparing them I think that this is a vital piece of information as this shows us what gave him the inspiration to start the design of a motorcar and means we can get an understanding of where his designs came from. The ‘Technical History of the Motorcar book also informs the reader that in 1883 he founded Benz and Co. and that his engine sold so well he could experiment on new road vehicles. None of this information is mentioned in the ‘Daimler and Benz’ book but to me this gives me the understanding of how the rest of the car develops meaning you can see where the design originates from.

However, the ‘Daimler and Benz’ book does tell us that in 1880 the first stationary engine was introduced after many attempts, disappointments and privations and it continued to run smoothly. This engine quickly brought riches to both Benz and his backers, leaving him time to experiment and develop a motor suitable to power a horseless carriage. This information would link to that given in the other book but is more detailed and specific about what happened giving us the understanding of how Benz continued from this stage of his design. What is also very useful is that we get an understanding of how Benz came about his fuelling method for his small engine and also we are told that both Daimler and Maybach came to the same conclusions so it was a race to build the motor carriage.

Both books mention the first motorised vehicle being created in 1885, however the ‘Technical History of the Motorcar’ only mentions that the car ran successfully in the July. Whereas in the ‘Daimler & Benz’ book we are told that during the initial trial the car stalled and then the drive chain snapped, even after improvements he managed to drive it straight into a brick wall. Comparing these books at this point the ‘Daimler & Benz’ book tells us more information about the problems so we can get the full understanding of the development.

Again both books talk about the fact that in 1892 Benz solved the problem of steering a four-wheeled vehicle and that the following year twin-cylinder Victoria and Vis-à-vis cars appeared and in 1894 the Velo. However, neither of the books are that useful to the understanding of the design because they do not discuss how he came up with these designs or where the developments came from. But we are told in ‘Daimler & Benz’ that more than 1,250 car were sold between 1887 and 1900 and that by 1889 he was the most successful automaker in the world. This is more useful to the understanding of the design because it shows that the cars were successful and that all the developments were necessary for the final ideas. Whereas the ‘Technical History of the Motorcar’ tells us that the Velo was so popular it was built on quantity production lines. This gives us a good understanding of how well his motorcars did and the level of production that was required.

‘A Technical History of the Motorcar’ talks about Benz’s personality and the fact that his stubbornness was an asset in the development but this became a liability because he became less competitive and wasn’t concerned in greatly improving his designs. ‘Daimler & Benz’ says that in 1901 Benz would realise that his greatest weakness was failing to recognise Daimler and Maybach’s achievements. Both of these books have contrasting opinions on why Benz began to fail but they both give us an understanding into him as a person and how he needed to develop to ensure his business continued to succeed. However, the motor industry was wrecked by the war which obviously had a huge impact on Benz and Daimler & Benz merged in 1926, this gives us an understanding into how much the war did impact on the company because although the designs were still popular people couldn’t afford to buy these motorised wagons.

Books used:

A Technical History of the Motorcar- Newcomb & Spurr

Daimler & Benz: The Complete History- Dennis Adler