Great-granddaughter of Bertha and Carl Benz: Jutta Benz celebrates her 75th birthday this year (PHOTOS)

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Feier zum 125. Geburtstag des Automobils am 29. Januar 2011. Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Vorsitzender des Vorstands der Daimler AG und Leiter von Mercedes-Benz Cars mit Jutta Benz, Urenkelin von Carl Benz (Mitte) und Désirée Nosbusch. 125th birthday of the car on 29 January 2011. Dr Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars with Jutta Benz, great-granddaughter of Carl Benz (centre) and Désirée Nosbusch.

She has a famous surname: Jutta Benz. On 1 October 2018, the great-granddaughter of Bertha and Carl Benz is 75 years old. As a Mercedes-Benz Brand Ambassador, she regularly appears at automotive classic events. Jutta Benz often drives the Benz Patent Motor Car at these events – as effortlessly as her great-grandmother Bertha once did. The wife of the inventor of the car, Carl Benz, wrote the history of mobility in 1888 with the first long-distance car journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim.

warmly congratulates Jutta Benz on her 75th birthday. It is always a great honour for all of us to have her in our team at events as a Brand Ambassador with her fresh and hands-on style,” says Christian Boucke, Head of Mercedes-Benz Classic. “And when she drives the Benz Patent Motor Car like her great-grandmother back then, it is a highly authentic image for me.”

Carl Benz, the great-grandfather of Jutta Benz, filed a patent application for his “motor car for gas engine operation” on 29 January 1886. The revolutionary, totally new design was the first car in the world and made history as the Benz Patent Motor Car. Carl’s wife Bertha fundamentally shaped and promoted its development. She supported her husband in every respect, regularly contributing strong impulses of her own to bring the car from invention and market launch through to continuous enhancement.

Bertha Benz’s long-distance journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim with the Benz Patent Motor Car, which she completed with her sons 130 years ago in August 1888, is famous. This drive was both an endurance test and proof that this magnificent invention worked.

Although the car has naturally always played a major role in her family, for Jutta Benz, who was born on 1 October 1943 in Mannheim, and who never met her great-grandparents, it is not the main focus. Jutta Benz studied French and History and then became a teacher. Her enormous curiosity about the world took her on long journeys, for example to Asia and South America.

Jutta Benz is the last bearer of the Benz surname who can be directly traced back to Carl and Bertha Benz. She was given her sense of tradition for the family and its significant role in the history of mobility by her father. She injects life into this tradition: when asked, she is always happy to tell the story of how the car was invented, of the setbacks at the outset and also of her great-grandmother’s achievements.

No wonder she has tremendous admiration for her great-grandparents, especially her great-grandmother, an outstanding woman of her time: in their day, publicly exhibited creativity and equality were anything but the norm. Bertha Benz and her husband Carl are symbols of the unique story which began with the invention of the car and led to the success of the Mercedes-Benz brand.