International Benz

IIn 1885 Karl Benz patented his “Motorwagen”, generally recognised as the first technically and commercially viable automobile: a single cylinder, four-stroke engine; built into a tubular steel-framed, three-wheeled body.

Design improvements were made in the following years, (including adding a fourth wheel), and the Motorwagen proved highly popular, helped especially by his wife Bertha’s widely publicised 1888 drive in a Model 3 Benz from Mannheim to Pforzheim to visit her mother. By 1900, however, the Benz design was falling behind the technical advancements of its competitors, who were adopting front-mounted, vertical, engine layouts, pioneered by Panhard & Levassor, based on Daimler engines.

In 1903, following internal disagreements, Benz resigned from operational roles in the company but remained on the board long enough to see the 1926 merger with his rival Gottleib Daimler’s DMG, (although Daimler himself had died in 1900) to form Mercedes Benz.

About this vehicle

The Shuttleworth Benz, the Collection’s oldest car, was built in Paris by Emile Roger, in 1898. It has a horizontally mounted, single-cylinder engine and three, belt-driven, forward gears (no reverse), all housed beneath the seat at the rear. The engine is started by pulling over the large, spoked, flywheel by hand.

The car was purchased for £35 from a car breaker in Honiton, by Richard Shuttleworth, in 1930. He was particularly fond of the Benz, restoring it and taking it on several London-Brighton runs. The engine was rebuilt in 2010 and ran successfully on several occasions, but in 2024 it was decided to carry out a full restoration, which was completed in time for the car to make its official return to operational display at the October 2025 Race Day air show.