Tri-car

On 29 January 1886, Karl Benz obtained the patent for the combustion engine: he went down in history as the father of the first car. Three years earlier, in 1883, Benz founded Benz&Cie. Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik, to design and build two-stroke gas engines and thus lay the foundations of what would later become the automobile industry. Thus the famous Motorwagen was born in 1886: an eventful tricycle powered by petrol.

Course, in the field of technology, it is difficult to establish records with absolute certainty: new ideas are often in the air and may contribute to them, and this constantly evolving and competing technological process made one of its direct competitors, the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, establish itself on the market with the first Mercedes models. Years later (1926) the two companies merged to form a happy partnership: Mercedes-Benz. There is no doubt, however, that Benz was the first to conceive and build a sextant motor car and not as a horse-drawn carriage adapted to mechanical propulsion. The engine of that pioneering car was 4-stroke, had an output of 0.8 Hp at 250 rpm and was installed at the rear. Since then, the refinement of the car has not stopped until today's goals of economy, performance and safety, and indeed it is surprising how a mature technology such as automotive technology is still in effervescent evolution.