A handful of images still exist of the mustachioed Karl Benz atop his greatest invention, the motor car. Having patented a way to propel carriages via a chain attached to an internal combustion engine, he made his early Viktoria and Vis-a-Vis models, with 2 – 4 horsepower, that were more a hybrid between a bicycle and a carriage than the automobiles in the way we think of them today. But the following model became one of the first mass produced vehicle in automotive history — with some 1,200 units built in total.

On this day, May 19, in 1896, the first Benz-produced Patent Motorwagen appeared in the Netherlands and Germany. That was the very first start to the automobile era.

Benz was not only a talented engineer, but skilled in marketing as well. One of his earliest cars was used by his wife Bertha Benz, and their two sons Richard and Eugen, in the first long-distance journey by automobile. At a top speed of around 12 miles an hour, it took them a while to complete the 62 mile route from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back, but they undoubtedly turned many heads along the way.