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Who built the first gasoline-powered automobile, in 1885 to 1886?
His three-wheeled Patent-Motorwagen is considered the first practical car.
Benz applied for a German patent on 29 January 1886 for a 'vehicle powered by a gas engine', patent number 37435. His Patent-Motorwagen had three wire-spoked wheels and a compact single-cylinder four-stroke engine mounted horizontally at the rear, producing roughly three-quarters of a horsepower. The design was a purpose-built vehicle in which engine and chassis were conceived together, not a horse carriage fitted with a motor.
Calling it the first automobile is a matter of definition. Steam-powered road vehicles, including Cugnot's artillery tractor of 1769, existed a century earlier, and Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach were building their own gasoline vehicle at about the same time, working independently some distance away. Benz is credited because he patented an integrated petrol-driven car and later sold them to customers. Benz's firm, Benz & Cie., went on to sell the three-wheeler and later four-wheeled cars from the late 1880s, and merged with Daimler in 1926.
The vehicle's practical reputation was boosted in August 1888 when Bertha Benz, without telling her husband, drove an improved model with her sons from Mannheim to Pforzheim, her birthplace. The trip, around 100 km one way, is regarded as the first long-distance automobile journey. She also improvised repairs and sought fuel from a pharmacy, which sold the solvent ligroin. The episode helped publicize the car.