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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is January nine. The day was January twenty nine.

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Speaker 1: German engineer Carl Binns applied for a patent for what

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Speaker 1: he called a vehicle with gas engine operation. Now, the

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Speaker 1: patent wasn't granted until November, but once it was accepted,

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Speaker 1: this day became the official date of the invention, and

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Speaker 1: that patent number d R pre registered with the German

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Speaker 1: Imperial Patent Office in Berlin, would eventually be viewed as

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Speaker 1: the birth certificate of the automobile. The motor Waggin or

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Speaker 1: a patent motor car, was a three old carriage powered

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Speaker 1: by a rear mounted single cylinder four stroke engine. It

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Speaker 1: had an output of nearly one horse power and the

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Speaker 1: engine itself weighed about two d and twenty pounds or on.

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Speaker 1: Binns had developed the automobile in a process that his

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Speaker 1: wife Eartha financed with her dowry. At the time, there

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Speaker 1: were other inventors working on creating a gas powered automobile,

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Speaker 1: like Gottlieb Daimler and Willem Maibach, and Belgian engineer John

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Speaker 1: Joseph Etienne Lenoire had already made and demonstrated a motorized

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Speaker 1: carriage years prior, so how did Bens in his invention

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Speaker 1: come out on top. Well, Bence's vehicle wasn't revolutionary just

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Speaker 1: because of its gas engine. Those have been around for decades,

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Speaker 1: usually used to power industrial and farm machines, but most

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Speaker 1: were huge and stationary. But by the late eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: engineers were toying around with the idea of using smaller, lighter,

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Speaker 1: internal combustion engines to power personal vehicles. In five Daimler

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Speaker 1: and my Bach created a motorcycle with an internal combustion engine,

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Speaker 1: but Ben's got his patent first, and bnss invention was novel.

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Speaker 1: The patent motor cars, chassis, engine, and drive components were

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Speaker 1: all integrated as a single unit. The wire spoke wheels

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Speaker 1: in solid rubber tires were Benzes designs. The automobile had

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Speaker 1: an electric coil ignition, tubular steel frame, rack and pinion

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Speaker 1: steering to passenger seating, and an evaporative cooling system. It

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Speaker 1: went up to around eight miles or thirteen kilometers per hour.

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Speaker 1: The Benz patent motor Waggin was more than just a

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Speaker 1: horseless carriage. Bins had created the first practical automobile that

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Speaker 1: was made to be powered by an internal combustion engine.

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Speaker 1: So Carl Binns came to be known as the inventor

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Speaker 1: of the modern car. But the road to the eight

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Speaker 1: six patent was a long one. Binns graduated from university

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four with a degree in mechanical engineering.

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Speaker 1: While riding his bicycle, he began imagining a completely mechanized vehicle.

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Speaker 1: But after he graduated, he did short steps at various

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Speaker 1: construction and engineering companies that weren't really a perfect fit

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Speaker 1: for him. So in eighteen seventy one he partnered with

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Speaker 1: August Ritter in Mannheim, Germany to open the Iron Foundry

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Speaker 1: and Mechanical Workshop, which was later called the Factory for

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Speaker 1: Sheet Metal Working Machines. Unfortunately, Ritter wasn't a great business

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Speaker 1: partner and that endeavor didn't last long. Bins paid ridder

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Speaker 1: off you Sing his soon to be wife, Bertha's dowry,

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Speaker 1: and Carl and Bertha began running the company together, but

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Speaker 1: business still wasn't so hot, and Bins turned his attention

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Speaker 1: to developing two stroke engines to bring in more money.

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Speaker 1: Along the way, he picked up a lot more new patents,

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Speaker 1: including ones for the battery powered ignition system, gear shifter,

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Speaker 1: spark plug, and clutch. But after the business became a

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Speaker 1: public limited company, partners just wanted too much say in

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Speaker 1: Ben's designs and he left in eighty three. In October

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Speaker 1: of that same year he found it Bensenco. With Max

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Speaker 1: Rose and Friedrich William s Linger. Soon the company had

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Speaker 1: twenty five employees and finally Binns could dedicate his time

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Speaker 1: to building a horseless carriage, and in five the motor

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Speaker 1: Vauguin was on the road. Now that's not to say

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Speaker 1: it was perfect, of course, and it's for trials. The

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Speaker 1: automobile stalled in the drive, chane snapped and once Ben's

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Speaker 1: drove the wagon straight into the brick wall of his shop.

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Speaker 1: But in July Binns took the vehicle for its first

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Speaker 1: public drive, with his son holding a bottle of gas

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Speaker 1: as he ran alongside his father. Even though this was

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Speaker 1: surely entertaining, nobody was really interested in buying the automobile yet.

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Speaker 1: By eight seven, Binns was on his third model of

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Speaker 1: the car, but he still hadn't sold any so Bertha

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Speaker 1: again contributed to the company's success when she took a

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Speaker 1: Model three Motorvadun on a trip from Mannheim to Fursime

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Speaker 1: with her sons. Her trip, which was over fifty miles long,

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Speaker 1: was a publicity stunt, but it also brought some of

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Speaker 1: the vehicle's problems to their attention, and Ben's was able

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Speaker 1: to make several upgrades to the car. Binns begins selling

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Speaker 1: his cars in the summer of eight. In between eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six and eight, about twenty five of the Model

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Speaker 1: three motor Vogumes were built, and by the late eighteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: Vincent Co. Had moved on to selling four World motor Vacumes.

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Speaker 1: It would be a while before the automobile would be

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Speaker 1: accepted widely, but the world was on its way towards

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Speaker 1: the next era of transportation. I'm Eaves, Jeff Coote, and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. You can subscribe to This Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class on Apple Podcast, the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to producer Chandler

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Speaker 1: Mays for all his audio work. We'll see you here

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Speaker 1: in the same place tomorrow.