Karl Benz patented the first practical gasoline-powered automobile in 1886.
Benz’s three-wheeled Patent-Motorwagen used a single-cylinder, four-stroke gasoline engine mounted at the rear. German patent number 37435 was granted on January 29, 1886, a date often treated as the automobile’s official birth.
The Motorwagen was not the first self-propelled road vehicle: steam-powered machines had appeared earlier. Benz’s achievement was combining an internal-combustion engine, chassis, steering system, and practical road-going design into one vehicle.
Benz’s wife, Bertha, helped demonstrate the automobile’s usefulness in 1888 by driving from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her sons. Benz later became part of the company that formed Mercedes-Benz in 1926.