1893 Benz Victoria

1893 Benz Victoria

One of the heroic figures of the automobile's pioneering age, Karl Benz, the son of a railway mechanic, built in 1885, followed by several years of experimentation. gas engines. Co-incidentally, it was in that same year that a German inventor - Gottlieb Daimler, whose name would later become inextricably linked with that of Benz - demonstrated his own high-speed internal combustion engine installed in a rudimentary motorcycle. Although Daimler went on to produce the first successful four-wheel truck, the design lacked many of the Benz tricycle's advanced features.

By 1892 Benz produced by the turn of the century Benz was producing the popular Velocipede (Cycling) among other models, sales of which of the major European competitors. The Benz engine design, both in twin-and-single-cylinder forms, most notably Georges Richard, Marshall and Star, and Emile Roger in France. The basic Benz design was to influence motor car production for some 15 years, from 1885 to 1900, until the arrival of the new 'Panhard System' and also De Dion-Bouton's fast revving vertical engines sounded its death knell.

This example of the early Benz, with its small front wheels and larger rear wheels, clearly has a lot in design to the horse-drawn carriage. Nothing is known of the car's history, other than the fact that it appears to be restored at some time.

Descriptions & pictures by bonhams & flickr