This Is How These 25 Modern Cars Of Famous Brands Look In Comparison With Their Old Versions

Interestingly, the first actual car thief in history had the same last name as its creator. And indeed, in 1888, Bertha Benz, the wife of the author of the first car in history, behind her husband's back and without informing the local authorities, got behind the wheel with her two teen sons and drove to a neighboring city to visit their relatives.

The journey of Bertha Benz took more than a hundred kilometers and became a real sensation all over the world. You can even say that it was Bertha who drew everyone's attention to her husband's invention, proving that a car is not a toy, but a real vehicle. By the way, during her trip, the woman bought gasoline at local pharmacies, where it was sold as a cleaning agent.

Eight years after Bertha Benz's memorable journey, the first ticket in the history of mankind for speeding was issued. The historic offender was Briton Walter Arnold, who was driving his car at an unimaginable speed of 8 miles per hour. There were no traffic rules then, so the police fined Arnold as if he was riding a horse-drawn carriage.

By the way, despite the fact that Walter Arnold was the first driver fined for speeding, he never became the first racer in history - after all, the first car race took place a year before his incident. The race was the idea of ​​H.H. Kohlsaat, the publisher of the Chicago Times-Herald.

Hoping to promote this new industry and sell more papers, Kohlsaat announced "A Prize for Motors," with a $5,000 purse for "inventors who can construct practicable, self propelling road carriages." The race was originally planned to run from Chicago to Milwaukee, but bad roads forced a shorter course, and it became a 54-mile course from Chicago to Evanston and back.

The official race was held on Thanksgiving Day in temperatures around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, with 6 inches of fresh snow and drifts of up to 24 inches. Almost 80 entrants had been promised, but only 11 agreed to run in such weather, and just six cars arrived at the start line. Only two entrants finished and the winner of the first race ever was J. Frank Duryea.

Today, the automotive industry continues to evolve as every year there are faster, smarter and safer cars, more and more like futuristic land-based versions of spaceships. But no matter how technically perfect they were, it all started then, one hundred and thirty-seven years ago, in the quiet German town of Mannheim, when Karl Benz, scaring away all the surrounding dogs and to the delight of the neighboring children, rolled out his home-made unit onto the road, marking the birth of a new era.