Karl Benz
Do you know that the first car in history was powered by gasoline? And the first bus in history was also its inventor, Karl Benz. The man who invented and with the help of other innovators found one of the greatest and most luxurious cars in the world. By the way, have you thought about the reason for its name, Mercedes, and the meaning of the three-arrow logo? I will explain it to you in this article.
Karl Benz is the hero of this strange story. He was born on November 25, 1844 AD in southern Germany in Karlsruhe. His family was very poor and ordinary. Since he was a child, he was fond of transportation and the ability of machines, because his father worked as a train driver in Karlsruhe. From time to time, he would take his son Karl with him to work in order to see and learn his father's work and take experience so that he might find a job in the future. From here, the love of mechanics and technology arose with Karl and continued with him until his adolescence and youth, as this led him to study engineering and obtain a diploma in engineering in 1864.
The dream of Karl Benz
After he graduated and obtained the diploma. The first thing he thought of was what most people would think of looking for a job. Indeed, Karl began working in several factories for seven years. The dream and goal he always wanted was to be an inventor and write his name in the pages of history like other inventors he used to read about. And he dreamed of having his own factory.
One day he decided not to sit down and dream only, but decided to start an actual move. And starting with the first step, and this step was with the participation of one of his friends, as they cooperated to open a repair shop for mechanical equipment and machinery in 1871. But it did not last for long until his friend left him and withdrew from the project. Karl Benz has been working alone in the shop for nearly 5 years. During this period Karl never gave up. Rather, he was working very hard and was able to design and build a two-valve engine that was failing and failing until he was finally able to operate it successfully in 1879.
The beginning of Benz's success
Seeing Karl's two-valve engine running successfully was like a dream come true in which he was filled with happiness, joy, excitement and all this emotion. So he had the idea to set up a company to manufacture engines that would run on gasoline fuel. He presented the idea to two friends, but both of them rejected the idea as a risky and failed investment, and they considered that Carl Bines was taking a heavy risk without any prior study.
They abandoned him and his idea, but that did not deter Karl from turning back. On the contrary, he became more insistent, like all the aspirants in this world.
Therefore, at the beginning of October 1883 AD. Karl Benz founded a company to make gas-fired engines. Only a few months passed, when Gottlieb Daimler obtained a patent for a gas engine and invented his first car with a gas engine in 1885, and these two innovations sparked the beginning of the automotive era in the world.
And at the beginning of the year 1886 AD. Karl Benz set the first building block and foundation for the automotive industry in the world, where he built a chassis of a car consisting of 3 wheels and a small box and the car was rear-wheel drive to become this vehicle is the first car in human history to officially roam the streets and it was powered by a fuel-powered engine.
After the success of Karl in 1895. He decided to show people his car that he had invented. During the show, he lost control of the car, crashing into a wall and smashing the entire car. All the attendees were laughing and mocking this three-wheeled box that had become junk in front of them. The mockery, laughter and mockery of his car was nothing but another motivation for him to develop and transform it for the better. And this is what happened.
Bynes began working on a new design for the car. As he added to it several advantages, both in design and on the engine, as it transformed from a three-wheeler to four-wheeled car, and in March of the same year, the design of the four-wheeled fuel-powered vehicle was the first in the world ready for implementation.
Indeed, he succeeded in that. And after four years, specifically in 1899, he managed to display his four-wheeled cars, which everyone mocked and ranked first in the world in the automotive industry.
Benz partner
The person who was one of the biggest contributors to the emergence and success of Mercedes was Jotolip Daimler. An engineer in the field of mechanics who had the same passion as Benz, he set up an engine workshop in partnership with another innovator, Wilhelm Maybach, yes, Maybach, which is named after the most luxurious Mercedes.
The car that Karl Benz invented was an industrial and technological revolution literally like a science fiction dream. Which turned into reality, but this dream was on a date with the worst event and worst disaster. It was the outbreak of the global war that caused paralysis for all German companies, including Benz.
The war sparked at the Karl Benz factory
After the war, Benz requested several loan applications from his financing bank, and the bank refused. Then he asked to convert his company into a joint stock company, but the request was rejected. And he stopped financing it completely. Thus, Karl Benz became between the hammer of war and bankruptcy, what happened that Benz became more determined and determined when he saw his supporters abandon him at the height of the crisis. He established a new company called "Benz & Co." and after a few years it became the number one company in the world in the automotive industry, becoming Benz specializing in the automotive industry, so he decided to establish a new company called Benz and Sons.
The emergence of the American Ford Company
It is known that one of the countries most affected by the world war was Germany. The world war did not affect the United States greatly. This was an ideal opportunity for Americans to enter the automotive industry from its widest doors and here a person named "Henry Ford" decided to produce his first car, the Model T.
It was very affordable. Its design is unique and attractive, which made the Ford car a challenge and a threat to German car companies. Including the company Benz, decided each of the company "Benz" and "Daimler". Agreement to merge the two companies; To become one company under the name "Daimler-Benz".
Benz's return to the market, and a contribution to the war market
Benz began to rise again from the ruins of crises and war. When Germany began building infrastructure, paving and repairing roads, and returning factories to work, there was a huge increase in demand for cars, and the strange thing that increased Mercedes-Benz's fame is that Hitler himself chose them to be the official state cars.
Not only that, Mercedes moved to the war market, where it contributed to the manufacture of automobile engines for soldiers and military aircraft during the war.
And over the years the company developed. Mercedes cars began to occupy prominent positions in the automotive world and became the most sought-after cars among the wealthy to the point that they were called the luxury car.
Reason of calling
Initially the company name was Daimler Benz. Before his death, however, Daimler recommended that his daughter be named Mercedes instead of his name. After his death in 1910 AD, his will was fulfilled. Where the name of the German company changed from Daimler Beans to Mercedes-Benz, a famous name that everyone knows to this day.
Mercedes Benz. The word Benz comes from the name of the first partner, Karl Benz. Mercedes is the daughter of Gottlieb Daimler. As for the famous logo of the company, which is a three-pointed star, it means the machine that works in three directions in the sky, on land and in the sea, and it means we are everywhere.