Karl Benz publicly drove the first practical automobile

On July 3, 1886, Karl Benz drove his Patent-Motorwagen through the streets of Mannheim, Germany, in what is remembered as the first public run of a practical automobile. The machine was a three-wheeled, single-cylinder vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine, the first car designed from the ground up rather than a carriage with a motor bolted on.

Benz had filed for his patent on January 29, 1886, a document often called the birth certificate of the car. Early outings were wobbly and slow, topping out around 10 mph.

The contraption sputtered, stalled, and spooked onlookers, yet it moved under its own power.

The public was unimpressed; it took his wife Bertha’s bold 1888 road trip to prove the thing was useful. The only surviving original now sits in Munich’s Deutsches Museum. From that noisy Mannheim demonstration grew an industry that would reshape cities, work, and daily life worldwide.