But my favorite part of the whole show involved not a new car, but one that was 121 years old. Mercedes had several replicas of the 1886 Benz Motor-Wagen, the first car. Young ladies in period costume were driving them around and giving rides to pretty much anyone who asked.
“Hey, can I have a ride?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” said the girl, who identified herself as Bertha Benz.
Now you’d have to be a real Benz-O-Phile to know that Bertha was the real name of Karl Benz’ real wife. While Karl got the patent to the Motor-Wagen in 1886, it apparently hadn’t caught on, “Bertha” explained while we chug-chugged around the plaza between buildings of the Auto Show. So one day, August 5, 1888, without asking her husband’s permission, Bertha loaded their two sons onto the Wagen and drove 66 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim.
The engine was a one-cylinder longitudinal horizontal layout that cranked an enormous flywheel. To start it you grabbed the flywheel and spun it. It fired every fourth stroke, spinning a drum around which was wrapped a belt that then spun the drive shaft and the big spoked wheel. Steering was by a tiller, the pinion of which operated a tiny rack that turned the lone front wheel.
They made one stop at a pharmacy in Weisloch for gas. The pharmacy was where you bought gas in those days. The stop made the Weisloch pharmacy the first gas station. They stopped two other times. Once she had to use her hair pin to unclog the carburetor and once she fixed an electrical cable with her garter. All true, Bertha explained as we motored between Hall 3 and Hall 5.
There we were surrounded by the highest-tech automobiles the world had ever seen and the one that got my attention was the oldest and possibly lowest-tech car ever made.
We saw AutoWeek news editor Gritzinger and chased him around. Almost got him, too.
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070912/FREE/309120002/1024/FREE