Rise of Mercedes Benz

Mercedes Benz was the first automobile company ever to manufacture automobiles for the general public. Mercedes Benz may be producing luxurious cars in today’s date but has also been the first company to produce cars for the common man. The company name is based on the name of its founder ‘Karl Benz’ who founded the very first gasoline-powered internal combustion engine in the world. Let’s know more how Karl Benz took his discovery to great heights where Mercedez Benz stands now.

Work was already going on with engines and propulsion devices but there was no discovery of a stable internal combustion engine which used gasoline as a fuel. Karl Benz, in 1879, was the first person to invent the first stationary gasoline internal combustion engine.

It was one cylinder, 2-stroke engine which sounds quite familiar to the engines used nowadays but in this first engine, fuel soaked fibres were used for full evaporation of fuel to the cylinder. To stabilize the single cylinder output, a horizontal flywheel was used. This configuration was embedded together with chassis and the same unit for both was used to make a lightweight car.

Further work was done by Karl Benz in 1885, during which he developed two-seater car with single cylinder but a 4-stroke engine this time. In 1886, few more modifications were done in the model and the first 3-wheeler automobile was patented. Karl Benz and his team kept on working with ideas and in 1891, they developed the first 4-wheeled vehicle.
This 1st motorwagen was having 954 cc, single cylinder, 4-stroke engine. It produced around 500 watts, 0.6 hp of power at 250 rpm. Further development led to the invention of the open crankcase, drip oiling system, poppet valve which were used in their next model. Improvements were constantly being made, 3rd motorwagen was able to give 1.5 kiloWatts, 2hp and speed of 16 kmph which was a great discovery at that time. This led to making Mercedez Benz, the first and largest manufacturer of automobiles in 1900.
So next time you see a Benz, you can estimate the journey company has covered.