Car Journey

Life's infinite landscape spirals past your lazy vision as you relax in the passenger seat, settling in to your movable sofa, waiting for some sign that you should stop and take a little stroll around. With all the world to explore you are reminded of how every avenue and expressway are seamlessly sown together in a great ribbon of grey that spans the entire earth in some secret plot to bridge every gap and bring together every person in the world. The world's first recorded long distance road trip by automobile took place in Germany in August 1888 when Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, the inventor of the first patented motor car (the Benz Patent-Motorwagen), travelled from Mannheim to Pforzheim (a distance of 106 km (66 mi)) in the third experimental Benz motor car (which had a maximum speed of 10 mph) and back, with her two teenage sons Richard and Eugen but without the consent and knowledge of her husband. Her official reason was that she wanted to visit her mother but unofficially she intended to generate publicity for her husband's invention (which had only been used on short test drives before), which succeeded as the automobile took off greatly afterwards and the Benz's family business eventually evolved into the present day Mercedes-Benz company. In 1907 the Peking to Paris motor race took place over a distance of 9,317 miles or 14,994 km, which can be seen as the first intercontinental road trip. There were forty entrants in the race, but only five teams ended up going ahead with shipping the cars to Peking. The race was held despite the race committee cancelling the race.