GreatOldCars.co.uk

The first ever car journey

In 1888 Karl Benz and his friends built the first horseless carriage. He didn't take it far though because he wasn't confident in it.

His wife was made of stronger stuff though. She took her two sons to visit their grandmother 66 miles away without telling him. En route she cleared a blocked fuel pipe with a hairpin, bought some fuel (she never knew what it was) from a chemist's shop and got a cobbler to re-line the brakes with leather.

We have come a long way since then! Here are just a few of the cars that blazed the way for the fast reliable machines we nearly all own today.