Bertha Benz
Took her husband's unproven car on a 65-mile road trip without telling him and fixed it as she went
Bertha Ringer was the daughter of a wealthy carpenter in Pforzheim. Before she married Karl Benz in 1872 she used part of her dowry to pay off the debts of his failing engineering workshop in Mannheim. As a married woman under German law she could not be a partner in the business, but for years it was her money and her belief that kept it going.
By 1886 Karl had patented a three-wheeled motor carriage with a single-cylinder engine. It worked, but he was cautious, the public was suspicious, and nobody was buying. In early August 1888, without telling him, Bertha took the car and their two teenage sons and set out for her mother's house in Pforzheim, about 65 miles away over hills and rough roads.
The trip took the whole day. The car had no fuel tank to speak of, so she bought ligroin, a cleaning solvent, from a chemist in Wiesloch, making it the first filling station. When the fuel line blocked she cleared it with her hatpin. When an ignition wire wore through she insulated it with her garter. She had a blacksmith mend a chain and a cobbler nail leather to the brake blocks, the first brake linings. She telegraphed Karl on arrival.
The journey proved the car could be used for real travel, and the publicity brought the first orders. Karl adopted her suggestions, including an extra gear for hills. She died in 1944, two days after her 95th birthday.