Karl Benz (born in 1844) is well prepared when he with 27 years of age founds a firm; he has studied at the polytechnical school in Stuttgart and he fulfilled different jobs as a technical draughtsman/technical designer in the construction of metals. The workshop is well equipped for pouring iron and sheet metal working. But quarrels with his partners and investors were so tough on him that he almost did not manage with his invention. He was not the first ingenious inventor to fail with his first own firm. For Benz it takes another failure, and only his third company is really successful. It is not the tricycle that brings success, but the two-stroke engine built in 1879/80.The successful marketing of this engine and its patent permit Karl Benz to develop a full motor vehicle, not - like Daimler - derived from the carriage.
The picture above shows a reproduction of the first car with four-cycle combustion engine. The patent was issued in 1886. The engine managed 250 rpm and produced 0.9 bhp. The press pursued the project with positive, but as well negative, comments so that Benz was at the brink of giving up. His wife pursued and took the risk for the first longer travel over 120 km from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back. It was quite an achievement, especially on iron-fitted wood wheels. It is not clear whether she or one of her children drove the vehicle. Numerous incidents occurred, in which they had to improvise or ask for assistance of specialists (e.g. the village black-smith). At first she just managed to get to the pharmacy, where she bought 10 litres of Ligroin (light gasoline), transforming it into the first 'gas station' of the world.