The genesis of modern travel: We drive a replica of the world’s first production car

The Patent-Motorwagen is more of a trike with three large wire spoke wheels with solid rubber tires.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

I initially thought driving the world’s first production automobile would involve a mastery of obscure pedals and levers to avoid stalling or crashing into a pole, but the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen was surprisingly intuitive.

Climbing up into the open carriage is slightly awkward but not more difficult than getting into a modern full-size pickup truck. You sit on what resembles a cushioned, leather-covered park bench, with just enough space for two passengers. Instead of a steering wheel, you have a tiller with a wooden handle that you rotate to steer. You push a long lever on your left to move forward and pull it back to slow down. Keep pulling, and the vehicle comes to a stop.

Because a practical two-wheel steering system had yet to be invented, Benz’s design was effectively a trike using three large wire spoke wheels with solid rubber tires. With less than one horsepower from its horizontally mounted, four-stroke single-cylinder engine, acceleration is leisurely and top speed is about 16 kilometres an hour.

The 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, of which this is a replica, has a horizontally mounted, four-stroke single-cylinder engine.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

Instead of a steering wheel, you have a tiller with a wooden handle that you rotate to steer.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

The single-piston reciprocates at a maximum of 400 revolutions per minute, slow enough that you can hear every stroke – put-put-put – which settles into a soothing staccato as you pick up speed. The ride over the cobblestone path is better than expected, owing to a rudimentary suspension using leaf springs.

It was enough for the wife of Carl Benz, Bertha, to complete what can be considered the world’s first road trip: a 194-kilometre round-trip journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim in southwest Germany, to visit her mother. Benz, a chronic tinkerer, wasn’t good at marketing his invention. If it wasn’t for Bertha, the vehicle might have sat in the garage until someone else came out with the first viable car.

After the inaugural drive, there was no fanfare or marching band for this significant world-altering achievement. When the Patent-Motorwagen went on sale, it was expensive, and there wasn’t a road network or fuelling infrastructure. Reports on the exact number produced are vague, but references in Carl Benz’s autobiography point to around 25. Only one original still survives, housed at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The one I drove is a replica owned by the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

Carl Benz cracked the formula of two-wheel steering in 1893, patenting a double-pivot system on the Benz Victoria – a ground-breaking design that made cars more stable and less prone to rolling over at higher speeds.

The original Patent-Motorwagen debuted 40 years before the Mercedes-Benz we know today, which was formed by the historic 1926 merger of rival companies Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie.

Gottlieb Daimler, founder of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, also built an automobile in 1886, but didn’t secure the patent because it was a modified horse-drawn carriage with his single-cylinder engine mounted inside, whereas Benz’s design was a completely bespoke creation.

This machine represents genesis for every internal combustion car that followed. While there’s little resemblance to modern vehicles, the fundamentals remain the same and, 140 years later, cars powered by internal combustion engines still dominate our roads.

A Mercedes-Benz 220, or a Ponton, one of the first cars that an S-Class can trace its roots back to.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

The Ponton was Mercedes-Benz's first unibody car.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

To celebrate 140 years of car production, the Mercedes-Benz museum rolled out some beautifully preserved models from its history – significant cars such as the 220S “Ponton”, one of its earliest unibody designs. It was a wonderful example in a robin’s egg blue over a burgundy interior, powered by a carbureted inline-six cylinder mated to a four-speed column-mounted manual transmission. Good for 85 horsepower, it had a top speed of 150 km/h, which was plenty for the time.

Driving it transported me to another time. I found myself staring over the solid-wood, Art Deco-inspired dashboard with its array of chrome-bezelled, unmarked switches and buttons, all while catching the distinct scent of the vintage upholstery. Bosch mechanical fuel injection – adapted from aircraft engines, and first used in the 300 SL sports car – became an option on the Ponton line in 1958. This system was also used in the Ponton’s successor, the 1959-1968 Fintail.

Its 2.2-litre inline-six made 120 horsepower, more than enough to easily reach the 100-kilometre-an-hour B-road speed limit in Germany. It featured modern amenities like power steering, power brakes, and an automatic transmission, delivering genuinely impressive handling on winding countryside roads. This was the first car to introduce the concept of front and rear crumple zones surrounding a strong passenger safety cell. On the road, it felt rock solid with a soft, quiet ride – not exactly what I expected from a 63-year-old car – representing a massive improvement over the Ponton.

These historical examples are the spiritual successors to the S-Class, the flagship of the current Mercedes-Benz lineup. The first car to officially wear the Sonderklasse (Special Class) nameplate was the W116 line produced from 1972-1980. The pristine example I recently drove in Germany was a 1979 350 SE, powered by a 3.5-litre V8 generating 200 horsepower.

The first model to officially be called Special Class (S-Class), a 1979 Mercedes-Benz 350 SE with a 3.5-litre V8, making 200 horsepower.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

Featuring a four-wheel independent suspension and disc brakes, it placed a premium on passenger safety, with a padded steering wheel and dashboard. It was easily my favourite of the group, a classic that I would gladly daily drive today.

If you would like to experience the dawn of modern-day transportation for yourself, the Mercedes-Benz Museum will sell you a Patent-Motorwagen replica for around $60,000.