Benz Patent Motor Car
Carl Benz patented this three-wheeled vehicle in 1886, with engine and chassis designed as one unit. Mercedes-Benz calls patent DRP 37435 the birth certificate of the automobile.
- Made by
- Mercedes-Benz Group
- From
- Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg
- Category
- Mobility
- Introduced
- 1886
What it is
The Benz Patent Motor Car is the three-wheeled, two-seater vehicle that the Mannheim engineer Carl Benz completed in 1885 and patented as DRP 37435. He filed the application on 29 January 1886 for a "vehicle with gas engine operation", and Mercedes-Benz says the patent may be regarded as the birth certificate of the automobile. The document is now part of UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
How it works
Benz's decisive move was to treat engine and chassis as a single design rather than fitting an engine to a carriage. A compact single-cylinder four-stroke engine sat horizontally at the rear, driving the rear wheels through a belt and a differential, inside a tubular steel frame carried on three wire-spoked wheels. Output was 0.75 hp (0.55 kW) at 400 rpm from 954 cc, enough for a top speed of about 16 km/h. An automatic intake slide, a controlled exhaust valve, high-voltage vibrator ignition with a spark plug and water thermo-siphon cooling kept the small engine running.
Why it stands out
Motorised carriages already existed; a self-contained vehicle built around a fast-running petrol engine did not. Benz showed the complete package in public in July 1886 on the streets of Mannheim. The proof of everyday usefulness came in August 1888, when his wife Bertha drove an improved Model 3 from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back with their sons Eugen and Richard, without telling him: 180 kilometres that made the case for the motor car far better than any brochure could. Benz & Cie grew into what Mercedes-Benz calls the world's largest automobile plant of its day. In 1926 it merged with Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft to form Daimler-Benz AG, the direct ancestor of today's Mercedes-Benz Group.
Where you meet it
The surviving original, Patent Motor Car No. 1, was given to the Deutsches Museum in 1906 and is on display at its transport centre in Munich. The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart opens its Legend 1 room with a faithful replica of the 1886 car beside Gottlieb Daimler's motorised carriage, and Mercedes-Benz Classic keeps running replicas for demonstrations and events.
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Last reviewed 6 November 2026. Main source: group.mercedes-benz.com/company/tradition/company-history/18. Suggest a correction.