Bertha Benz Memorial Route
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| Route information | |
| Length: | 194 km (121 mi) |
| Existed: | 25 February 2008 – present |
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| Tourist loop | |
| South end: | Pforzheim |
| North end: | Mannheim |
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The Bertha Benz Memorial Route is a German tourist and theme route in Baden-Württemberg and member of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. It opened in 2008 and follows the tracks of the world's first long distance road trip in 1888.
Bertha Benz's husband, Karl Benz, patented the first automobile designed to produce its own power in January 1886 (Reichspatent No. 37435).
In early August 1888, without her husband's knowledge, Bertha Benz, with her sons Richard (aged 14) and Eugen (aged 15), drove in Benz's newly constructed Patent Motorwagen No. 3 automobile, from Mannheim to her own birthplace, Pforzheim, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over more than a very short distance. The distance was about 104 km (65 mi). Distances driven before this historic trip were short, being merely trials with mechanical assistants.
Although the ostensible purpose of the trip was to visit her mother, Bertha Benz also had another motive: to show her brilliant husband – who had failed to consider marketing his invention adequately – that the automobile would become a financial success once it was shown to be useful to the general public.
On the way, she solved numerous problems. She had to find Ligroin, a solvent available only at dispensing chemists' shops, to use as fuel. Thus the still existing Stadt-Apotheke (Town Pharmacy) in Wiesloch, some kilometres south of Heidelberg, became the world's first filling station. A blacksmith had to help mend a chain in Bruchsal.Brake linings were replaced in Bauschlott/Neulingen north of Pforzheim. And Bertha Benz had to use a long, straight hatpin to clean a fuel pipe which had become blocked, and a to insulate a wire.
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