Benz concept celebrates Bertha's milestone

Bertha Benz must have been a resourceful and imaginative woman. In 1888 she piled her two teenage sons into a Patent Motor Wagen built by her husband Carl and set off on a round trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany, and return. The purpose of the trip -- taken without the knowledge of her husband -- was to visit her mother and also demonstrate the practicality of her husband's motor vehicle, not least of all to her husband!

Bertha (pictured) had to procure fuel from pharmacies along the route to complete the journey and she personally carried out side-of-the-road repairs such as clearing a fuel-line blockage with a hairpin and insulating a bared wire with an elastic garter. She also had help along the way from a blacksmith who repaired a drive chain and the car's brake linings needed replacing during the journey.

Posterity hasn't apparently recorded Carl's reaction on learning of his wife's feat or how it was that he failed to miss Bertha, the two boys or the car for two whole days, but Bertha's journey -- the first long-distance journey ever completed by a petrol-engined motor car -- has left an indelible impression on Mercedes-Benz management down through the years.

Why else would the company build a stylised replica of the original Patent Motor Wagen; the replica powered by a fuel cell to complete the same run?

Fuel cell vehicles travelling moderately long distances are not so new. Toyota's FCHV Advanced is virtually as practical as any Kluger, but boasts a range of up to 800km (more here). So the F-Cell Roadster, built over the course of a year by 150 Mercedes-Benz apprentices to commemorate Bertha's drive, is not as technologically advanced as it might seem.

In fact, paying homage to the original petrol-engined vehicle and its resourceful driver has taken precedence over advancing the cause of fuel cell technology. The F-Cell Roadster's fuel cell stack produces merely 1.2kW of power, for a top speed of just 25km/h and a range of 350km.

"This trip by the F-CELL Roadster is symbolic of the current change taking place in automobile engineering", said Dr. Thomas Weber, the member of the Daimler AG Executive Board responsible for corporate research and development at Mercedes-Benz Cars.

Weber observed that the parallel between the F-Cell Roadster's journey and Bertha's from 120 years earlier was the question of "inconveniences". Just as there were no service stations on every corner in Bertha's day, so too did the modern-day drivers confront a lack of readily-available hydrogen (although the modern car's range was more than adequate to cover the distance on one fill).

So the F-Cell Roadster is more symbolic indeed -- as opposed to entirely practical. But Daimler AG already has a 'real' fuel cell vehicle in the works, with a hydrogen-fuelled B-Class due to go into low-volume production before the end of this year.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi