<P> In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878 . Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle . His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany . He was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on 29 January 1886 (under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883). Benz began promotion of the vehicle on 3 July 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four - wheeler was introduced along with a model intended for affordability . They also were powered with four - stroke engines of his own design . Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz car to his line of products . Because France was more open to the early cars, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany . In August 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, undertook the first road trip by car, to prove the road - worthiness of her husband's invention . </P> <P> In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal - combustion flat engine, called boxermotor . During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest car company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint - stock company . The first motor car in central Europe and one of the first factory - made cars in the world, was produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897, the Präsident automobil . </P> <P> Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first car in 1892 under the brand name Daimler . It was a horse - drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, which they retrofitted with an engine of their design . By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers . Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work . They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG . Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler - Mercedes that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek . This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country . Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG car was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine, which generated 35 hp . Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own . Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers . </P> <P> Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First World War, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially . Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later when these conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000 . Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they advertised or marketed their car models jointly, although keeping their respective brands . On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler - Benz company, baptizing all of its cars Mercedes Benz, as a brand honoring the most important model of the DMG cars, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes - 35 hp, along with the Benz name . Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler - Benz until his death in 1929, and at times his two sons also participated in the management of the company . </P>

Where do parts of a car come from