Soiled dress, demeanour and speech completely at odds with her appearance, insists on buying the entire stock of ligorin from a chemist who examined the lady’s purpose warily.
“One litre of cleaning fluid will be plenty to remove the stains on your dress, madam” he says in a tone that reflected irritation along with a fatherly concern. But she stuck to her demand. Because she didn’t want to wash, but to refuel. So that she can continue the world’s first long-distance journey with her Benz Patent Motor Car.
She was Bertha Benz, the torch- bearer of Mercedes-Benz.
In a time when ‘car’ was not even a word yet, and people relied on horses to pull their wagons, she challenged the status quo. To prove to the world that her husband’s invention was the future of mobility, Bertha Benz went on the first long-distance journey with an automobile, facing all kinds of challenges but stopping at nothing.
Born into an age where women were denied access to higher education, scientists agreed to the belief that the lighter brain of women was logically unable to absorb and process as much information and thinking too much was harmful to their child-bearing ability, Bertha broke a number of stereotypes and cultural ties and beliefs in this one single journey.
She covered 106 kms of journey to her parents’ house in Pforzheim in 12 hours. The pharmacy where she bought the ligorin from is considered the first gas station. She introduced her husband’s invention to the world and changed the face of the ‘travel’ industry forever.
What stands as one of the biggest automobile empires has its roots traced down to this one lady- Bertha Benz, who believed in more than a car. She believed in herself.