Skip to main content

Automuseum C. Benz Söhne

Picture

We visited Winfried A. Seidel's excellent museum, which is situated in Ladenburg, near Mannheim in August, 2010.

Mr Seidel told us that the museum was originally opened in 1984 in a much smaller place, then moved to another location in the 1990s. It was a generous donation from Mercedes-Benz which enabled him to take over and refurbish the old workshops of C. Benz Söhne.

C. Benz Söhne was set up by Carl Benz and his sons in 1905 - two years after Carl Benz left his own company. C. Benz Söhne only built a couple hundred cars until 1926. Today the sole surviving C. Benz Söhne resides in Seidel's museum.

This is a small and rather accessible collection. Staff is absolutely friendly and the place is roomy, you can see all cars quite easily. On one of the walls there's the original patent, which shows the "Patent Motorwagen". There are a lot of early Benz cars, including a replica of Benz No3 - which Bertha Benz used for her epic trip in 1888. In addition to Benz, C Benz Söhne and Mercedes-Benz cars there are a few others, belonging to Seidel and Seidel's friends. Additionally there's a section devoted to motor racing in Germany, which shows everything from a 1920s Amilcar to 1970s special-racers. Elsewhere you can see classic bikes, bicycles too.

You can see more photos in our <A HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pnegyesi/sets/72157624940069646/detail/">f… gallery</A>

<A HREF="http://www.automuseums.info/germany/dr-carl-benz-museum">Museum entry in the database</A>