Bertha Benz

Biography

Cäcilie Bertha Ringer was born in Pforzheim on 3 May 1849, the third of nine children. She met Karl Benz in 1869, and in 1870, still unmarried, she put part of her dowry into his struggling iron construction company. They married in Pforzheim on 20 July 1872 and had five children.

On 5 August 1888, without her husband's knowledge, she set off from Mannheim to Pforzheim in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen Model III with her sons Eugen, 15, and Richard, 13. The trip covered about 106 km. She cleared a blocked fuel line with a hatpin and used a garter as insulation. In Wiesloch she bought ligroin at the Stadt-Apotheke, and a cobbler fitted leather to the wooden brakes. Afterwards she suggested an extra gear for climbing hills and proper brake linings, and the journey brought the car wide publicity.

In 1906 the family moved to Ladenburg and started the firm Benz Söhne. On her 95th birthday, 3 May 1944, the Technical University of Karlsruhe named her an honorary senator; she died in Ladenburg two days later. The 194 km Bertha Benz Memorial Route was approved as an industrial heritage route in 2008, and the Automotive Hall of Fame inducted her in 2016.