Benz, Karl

Benz, Karl (bĕnts), 1844–1929, German engineer, credited with building the first automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine. The car, driven in Mannheim in 1885 and patented in 1886, had three wheels, an electric ignition, and differential gears and was water-cooled. As a result of a merger in 1926, Benz's company became Daimler-Benz AG, the manufacturer of the Mercedes-Benz automobile.

Bibliography

See St. J. C. Nixon, The Invention of the Automobile (Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler) (1936); E. Diesel, From Engine to Autos (tr. 1960).

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Benz, Karl (Friedrich)

(born Nov. 25, 1844, Karlsruhe, Baden—died April 4, 1929, Ladenburg, Ger.) German mechanical engineer who designed and built the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine. The original car, his three-wheeled Motorwagen, first ran in 1885. Benz's company produced its first four-wheeled car in 1893 and the first of its series of racing cars in 1899. Benz left the company in 1906 to form another group with his sons. In 1926 the Benz company merged with the company started by Gottlieb Daimler.