Bertha Benz in the Motorwagon.

Out for a spin today?  Remember Bertha Benz, wife of German inventor Karl Benz.  In 1886 Benz patented his nifty new horseless carriage, the Motorwagon, only to see sales languish.  No one wanted a vehicle that hadn't been tested over long distances.  So in 1888, Bertha arose early on an August morning, leaving her sleeping husband, and sneaked out of the house with her two teenage sons to drive 65 miles to visit her mother.  Along the way she unclogged the engine with her hairpin, used her stocking garter to repair a broken ignition, realized that brakes would need linings, raised more than a few eyebrows, and also made history as the first person to drive an automobile over a long distance.   Naturally the trip became, as they say, a sensation, and within a few years Benz's company was the largest automaker in the world.  Bertha Benz died on this day in 1944 at the Benz home in Landberg, Germany.