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For Sale: The First Automobile – A Benz Patent-Motorwagen Ectype – $60,000+ USD

This is an exact reproduction of what is widely regarded to be the world’s first production automobile, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. It was built by John Bentley Engineering of England to exacting standards, so exacting in fact that Mercedes-Benz Classic commissioned 100 of them to be built for publicity and display purposes.

Although many expect it to just be a static model, this simple automobile is 100% operational and drivable – each was driven after it was built to test it, and then the wheels and tires were changed with new clean examples for display.

Fast Facts

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen is considered the first production automobile, it was developed by Karl Benz who worked closely with his wife Bertha Benz on many aspects of the design.
The vehicle uses a simple three-wheel arrangement that took considerable influence from the world of bicycles, which had been a lifelong passion for Karl Benz.
Power was provided by a rear-mounted four-stroke engine with a single cylinder that had been designed by Karl Benz and included a number of his own patented inventions, like the speed regulation system, the ignition system using a spark and a battery, a spark plug, and a carburetor.
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen was built with a tubular steel frame, steel spoked wheels with solid rubber tires, tiller-type steering, and seating for two.

Karl, Bertha, and the Benz Patent-Motorwagen

The chronicle of Karl Benz’s invention of his Benz Patent-Motorwagen cannot be told without much of the story also being devoted to his wife Bertha Benz, without whom it’s unlikely that the Patent-Motorwagen would ever have been built.

Above Image: An exact reproduction of the original 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen.

Not only did Bertha fund the project using money from her dowry, she also provided some much-needed business savvy that Karl Benz lacked. There can be no doubt that Mr Benz was an engineering genius, however the process of monetizing his creations had been something he had struggled with – until Bertha arrived.

After showing his Benz Patent-Motorwagen to the public in 1885 and applying for a patent which was granted in 1886, the company put the new automobile into production over three primary model families, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 1, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 2, and finally, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 3.

The First Ever Cross-Country Road Trip By Car

These early automobiles sold in limited numbers of approximately two dozen, mostly to well-heeled folk who saw the newfangled invention as a bit of curiosity. Bertha Benz realized they needed to expand their customer base, and so in early August of 1888 she set off with her two sons, Eugen and Richard, for what would become the first ever cross-country automobile journey – or the first road trip.

She drove from Mannheim via Heidelberg and Wiesloch, to Pforzheim to visit her mother, she completed the trip without telling Karl of her plans, and without informing any of the local authorities. The trip covered a distance of 106 km (66 miles), the stops in Heidelberg and Wiesloch were to buy fuel, the vehicle ran on a petroleum product called ligroin which was only for sale at chemists, there were no gas stations at the time of course.

This journey brought in much newspaper coverage and turned Bertha into a celebrity of sorts, sales of their automobiles increased as a result and it played no small part in the uptake of the automobile as daily transportation.

Above Image: Karl and Bertha Benz in a Benz-Victoria during the 1890s. Image courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.

Classic car enthusiasts now meet to complete the same journey in a long procession every two years, it’s called the Bertha Benz Memorial Route and it’s now officially sign posted for visitors who want to retrace her steps.

“Only one person remained with me in the small ship of life when it seemed destined to sink. That was my wife. Bravely and resolutely she set the new sails of hope.” – Karl Benz speaking of Betha Benz in 1925

The 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen Reproduction

As mentioned up top, this is an exact working replica of the original Patent-Motorwagen, the only key difference being the use of white gas as fuel rather than the harder to source ligroin.

Like this original, this simple automobile is powered by a 954cc, horizontally-mounted, single-cylinder, four-stroke engine with an electric ignition and it’s capable of 0.75 horsepower. This output is fed to a belt drive through a large, horizontal flywheel in the rear, reaching the rear wheels via dual chain drives – one on each side.

This carefully built replica is now due to be offered for sale by RM Sotheby’s on the 14th of August with a price guide of $60,000 – $80,000 USD. It comes with detailed operating instructions and it was only recently removed from its original shipping crate after many years of storage, it’s now been returned to running condition ready for sale.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

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The 400+hp Chevrolet Aerosedan By Ken “Posies” Fenical

This is the Chevrolet Aerosedan, it’s a one-off hot rod built by the legendary Ken Fenical, aka Posies, of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

In the world of hot rod building, the name Posies is well-known, it’s a company that supplies everything from parts and mechanical work to fully-built custom cars.

Fast Facts

This highly unusual hot rod was built by Ken Fenical, aka Posies. His company is known for producing hard to get hot rod parts and for their work in fabricating and building custom hot rods.
Ken built this car for himself, not for a client, and so he had full free reign to do whatever he liked.
It’s powered by a 400 bhp Roush Performance 308 cubic inch (5.0 liter) inline 6-cylinder engine with a Powerdyne supercharger.
It has seating for four adults in four custom-built bucket seats – two in the front and two in the back.

The Posies Aerosedan

Back in 2006 Ken decided to build himself his own hot rod, it would be something altogether unique that flouted a number of common hot rod traditions. First and foremost the car wouldn’t be powered by an American V8 – by far the most common engine choice for hot rod builders, dating back to the mid-20th century.

Instead of a V8 Ken and the team at Posies opted for a fire-breathing Roush Performance 308 cubic inch (5.0 liter) inline 6-cylinder engine with a Powerdyne supercharger. This engine was fitted with a Roush head, a Posies valve cover, and a Posies/Holley manifold.

Exact horsepower figures for this engine aren’t available however a reliable source is indicating that it’s capable of an estimated 400 bhp, vastly more than the original car’s 216 cubic inch inline-six would have been able to muster.

The car that was chosen as the starting point was a ’47 Chevy sedan, an unusual choice for a full hot rod build. Ken and his team cut 12 inches from the center and fused the two halves together creating a narrower, lighter body.

This body was then mounted to a low-slung custom steel tube frame chassis, the hood was discarded and the engine bay sides have large vents running down both sides to keep the highly tuned Roush engine as cool as possible.

Above Image: The car is fitted with a Roush Performance 308 cubic inch (5.0 liter) inline 6-cylinder engine with a Powerdyne supercharger that’s capable of a reported 400 bhp.

Inside the car you’ll find a fully trimmed interior with four bucket seats, a full length center console, air conditioning, a C4 automatic transmission with a Deltrans converter and a Gear Vendors overdrive, Haneline instruments, Dynamat sound deadener, and for safety, a Posies 10-point roll cage.

Braking power is provided by period-correct 11 inch drums on all four corners with a dual reservoir master cylinder. The car rides on Posies Super Slide springs at each wheel and it has Bilstein front shocks and Air Ride ShockWaves in the rear.

Those eye-catching rims are Colorado Customs wheels, with a 19×2 up front and a 20×3 in the rear, they’re shod with Coker Excelsior Racing tires, with a 19×4.5 in front and a 20×6 in the back.

Once completed the car was displayed at the 2007 SEMA show where it was seen by tens of thousands of show goers, it was later featured in Street Rodder Magazine and in Hot Rod Magazine.

By all accounts Ken used this car regularly and was known to drive it in a rather spirited manner, scaring the wits out of a Hot Rod Magazine writer back in 2007 on the streets of Hummelstown.

The car is now available to sale courtesy of Mecum Auctions who will be offering it as part of their Monterey sale in mid-August. At the time of writing there’s no price guide available, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Mecum

Chevrolet Aerosedan By Ken Posies Fenical 1

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James Bond’s Most Elegant Car: The Bentley R-Type Continental

Although we most often associate James Bond with the Aston Martin DB5, in the 1961 Ian Fleming novel Thunderball his automobile of choice was a Bentley R-Type Continental, which he had rebodied from a wreck by British coachbuilders H.J. Mulliner.

The Bentley R-Type Continental was developed in the early 1950s to be the ultimate gentleman’s express, a grand tourer capable of crossing continents as easily as it crosses cities, all draped in rich leather and gleaming walnut trim.

When it first hit the road in 1951 the R-Type Continental was the fastest four-seat car in the world, with a top speed of over 100 mph thanks to its 130+ hp 4.6 liter straight-six.

Fast Facts

The Bentley R-Type Continental was designed to be the best luxury grand tourer in the world, it was the fastest four-seat car on earth when it was introduced, and just 208 would be built.
Unlike modern production cars, the R-Type Continental was built by Bentley as a powered rolling chassis which would be delivered to the coachbuilder of your choice, who would build a body for it to your specifications.
The most frequently used coachbuilder for this model was H. J. Mulliner & Co of England, who had worked closely with the company in designing the car.

The Bentley R-Type Continental Fastback

Bentley was acquired by Rolls-Royce back in 1931 and the two companies have been in lockstep ever since, often producing very similar models with their own respective badging.

Above Image: The elegant styling of the R-Type Continental was penned by Stanley Watts of H. J. Mulliner.

The Bentley R-Type, on which the R-Type Continental is based, would be one such car. The rare Continental version was developed by Rolls-Royce and coachbuilding firm H. J. Mulliner & Co. and the leadership of Rolls-Royce Chief Project Engineer, Ivan Evernden.

The reason Rolls-Royce worked with Mulliner rather than with their own coachbuilding firm Park Ward was due to the new body construction technique used by Mulliner which used a full metal body, without the use of a traditional ash wood body frame under metal panels.

The styling of the R-Type Continental is attributed to Stanley Watts of H. J. Mulliner who integrated lessons learned using Rolls-Royce’s wind tunnel by Milford Read. The long swept rear of the car significant helps to reduce drag and the subtle rear fins are said to help stabilize the car at higher speeds.

R-Type Continental Specifications

Early versions of the car were fitted with the 4.6 liter (4,566cc or 278.6 cu. in.) straight-six that was good for 130+ hp. This engine had an iron-block with an aluminum-head, twin SU type H6 carburetors, and a 3.62 in bore with a 4.50 in stroke. Power was sent to the live axle read end via either a 4-speed manual center shift or a 4-speed automatic transmission.

Later versions of the car, from mid-1954 onwards, were fitted with the more powerful 4.9 liter version of the same engine, a size increase that came thanks to its larger 3.7 inch bore. The straight-six used in the Continental was largely the same as the engine used in the standard R-Type, with the exception of the altered carburation, induction, and exhaust manifolds.

The engine also used a higher compression ratio of 7.25:1 compared to the normal engine at 6.75:1. Though low by modern standards, these compression ratios were chosen due to the poorer quality fuel typically available at the time.

Above Image: This car is powered by the 4.9 liter straight-six with period-correct modifications to boost power output to 178 bhp.

By the time the production of the R-Type Continental drew to a close just 208 examples had been made, 207 regular production cars and one prototype. Of these cars, just 43 were left-hand drive. Today the model is seen as one of the most collectible Bentleys of the era, with auction values now reaching well over a million USD.

The R-Type Continental Fastback Shown Here

The car you see here is possibly the only one that was built by Bentley twice, once when it was first constructed and then again after it had been involved in an accident requiring chassis repairs, a new body, and a new more powerful engine.

J. Gordon Mack was the first owner of this car, a member of the Pennsylvania family that owned the G.C. Murphy variety store chain. Mack took delivery New York distributor J.S. Inskip though less than a year later the car was returned to the factory and was totally remanufactured to the most current specification.

It’s likely that this was due to the car being involved in an accident, the upside of which is that the car was equipped with the more powerful 4.9 liter engine in place of the original 4.6 liter unit.

The car would later be restored in 1988, and then in 1997 it would receive an upgrade to the big-valve, six-port cylinder head, as used on the later Bentley S1, as well as larger SU carburetors, a special distributor, and a larger-diameter tailpipe – all together this boosted the engine’s output to 178 bhp.

These period-correct engine upgrades are exactly the sort of thing you would expect James Bond to have done to his own car in order to give it a little more poke. Though it’s perhaps not as famous as the DB5, the R-Type Continental is unquestionably the most elegant car ever owned by Ian Fleming’s iconic secret agent.

This unusual Bentley R-Type Continental Fastback is now due to cross the auction block with RM Sotheby’s on the 14th of August with a price guide of $1,300,000 to $1,600,000 USD. If you’d like to read more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.