Random Fact of the Day
3rd July 1886: Karl Benz drove the first automobile in Germany.
Karl Friedrich Benz was a German engine designer and automobile engineer.
He attended the University of Karlsruhe and started to envision concepts for a vehicle that would eventually become the horseless carriage while riding his bicycle.
He went on to patent the speed regulation system, system, the ignition using sparks with battery, the spark plug, the carburettor, the clutch, the gear shift and the water radiator before developing a four stroke engine. Quite the inventor!
His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 was considered the first practical automobile but was difficult to control so was improved upon and developed into the Benz Patent Motorwagen and advertised for sale in 1888, making it the first commercially available automobile in history.
(Image courtesy of Wikepedia.)
Following many ups and downs including the 1923 German economic crisis and hyperinflation, finally on 28th June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG (Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft) merged as the Daimler-Benz company. It named all of its automobiles “Mercedes-Benz” in honour of the 1902 Mercedes 35hp (the most important model of the DMG automobiles) along with the Benz name.
Mercedes Benz (slogan; “the best or nothing”) is now the word’s biggest premium car maker selling 2,289,344 cars in 2017. I wonder if Benz ever envisaged that when he was on his bicycle back in 1864!
Did you know that we can make a box big enough to fit a car inside?
Just click the button below to see the box we made for the un-boxing of a car!
Or visit us at www.cardboardboxes.co.uk to find out how we can make the perfect box for you!
The Scottish-born Robert Gair invented the pre-cut cardboard or paperboard box in 1890 – flat pieces manufactured in bulk that folded into boxes. Gair’s invention came about as a result of an accident: he was a Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker during the 18, and one day, while he was printing an order of seed bags, a metal ruler normally used to crease bags shifted in position and cut them. Gair discovered that by cutting and creasing in one operation he could make prefabricated paperboard boxes. Applying this idea to corrugated boxboard was a straightforward development when the material became available around the turn of the twentieth century.