He Benz, But Can He Brake?

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

Jingoists, all, we ascribe the automobile to American icons, and "everybody" knows the hallowed names of Henry Ford, Ransome E. Olds (REO), Elwood Haynes, the pride of Kokomo (Indiana, not the beach) Stanley of Steamer notoriety, Pierce, whose Arrow was iconic in its own right, and handsfull of lesser luminaries, including the Appersons, 

But, the origins of the motorcar antedated the fabled assembly line, as well as great names such as Duesenberg, Alexander Winton, John Willys, Preston Tucker, William Durant, the Duryea Brothers, David Buick, Jonathan Maxwell, the Briscoes, Vincent Bendix, Frederic Fisher, James Packard, John Studebaker, Stutz, Marmon, Charles Nash, Walter P. Chrysler, the Dodge Brothers, et al.

In fact, 1886 saw the issue of a patent to Karl Friedrich Benz for a moving vehicle, a three-wheeled four-cycle oundation for an empire.  But Karl was not an ace businessman, and it took his wife's dowry to save the fledgling corporation.  Once.  But, when Benz failed to change with the times, and clung to an outdated vision for Benz & Cie, Bertha had no more bail-out money.

And, thus she died at 95, Karl predeceasing her by some ten years, after a stultifying stint on the Benz Supervisory Board.  Nevertheless, Benz' and his magical patent transformed the work of shade-tree mechanics into complex machinery that altered lifestyles all over the planet.  

It took a few decades for the assembly line to re-imagine how the machines were to be efficiently manufactured.  And, even then, the pioneering work was done by Ransom Olds, and not the fabulously successful Henry Ford.