Back in 1986 Mercedes-Benz celebrated its 100th birthday. To mark this occasion the company ordered the building of several replicas of the original car made by Karl Benz. The patents were issued on January 29, 1886 after which the car became known as the ‘Patent Motorwagen’. Because of the high demand these replicas generated, another series of ninety replicas were made in 2003/2004. These have found their way across the world and can now be seen in several museums. Just because Karl Benz was (one of) the first constructor(s), he had literally to start from scratch, so it was inevitable that he made some errors in his design. One of his ideas was that the flywheel had to be placed horizontally, because he thought that a vertical flywheel would make the ‘Patent Motorwagen’ very difficult to steer because of the gyroscopic effects. Naturally there wasn’t a starter motor, so the engine had to be started by pulling the flywheel at exactly the right moment. And that’s not easy as I found out a few months ago. I was given the opportunity to test one of these Benz replica’s, but despite enormous efforts I failed to start the vehicle.

photo Rutger Booy

November 19, 2005