Dan Neil takes a replica of the world’s first automobile for a spin. A good report, with history, technology and appreciation. An excerpt:
Fettled in his modest workshop in Mannheim, Germany, Benz’s Patent Motorwagen didn’t look much like a car as we know it today. To the town’s mildly alarmed burghers, it didn’t even immediately suggest a horseless carriage, whatever that was. With its spoked rear wheels and tuck-and-roll upholstered seat, it looked rather more like a park bench gone walkabout. But it was, in all the ways that matter, the first proper automobile. This was the life-evoking lightning stroke in the primordial pond, the rudimentary sorting of nucleotides from which a new species would arise. It was only a matter of time before real estate agents driving three-ton Escalades would overrun the Westside.
Automotive history begins with the 1886 Benz Motorwagen. And here I am, driving it down the quiet streets of Pasadena.