The Benz Patent-Motorwagen was patented in 1886.
Carl Benz filed the patent application for his “vehicle with gas engine operation” on 29 January 1886. The German patent was granted later that year, in November, and the vehicle became known as the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. The patent is often described as the automobile’s “birth certificate.”
The Motorwagen was a three-wheeled vehicle powered by a rear-mounted single-cylinder, four-stroke petrol engine. Benz had built and tested it before the patent application, but 1886 is the canonical year because that is when the invention was formally patented.
Another date commonly associated with the vehicle is 1888. That year, Benz’s wife Bertha made her famous long-distance journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim in an improved Motorwagen, helping demonstrate that the machine could be used beyond local tests. The public drive and later commercial production are therefore separate milestones from the 1886 patent.