Car History. 17. New Fuel: Petronium 5

 In October 1882, Daimler (46 years old) and his wife, along with Maybach (36 years old) and his wife, moved south in Germany to Bad Cannstatt, Stuttgart. Both Daimler and his wife had weak hearts and were suffering from poor health, so they were delighted to find a fine house near a medicinal spring.

Bad Cannstatt (Stuttgart) is famous as the venue of the Stuttgart Beer Festival.

Daimler and Maybach sold off their shares of patent rights from Deutz, receiving compensation of 112,000 Goldmark. From this, they spent 75,000 Goldmark to purchase the house. The house had a spacious garden with large glass walls for growing plants, but Daimler and Maybach remodeled the glass-walled garden into a red-brick workshop in order to secretly research a lightweight, high-speed Petronium combustion engine.

When a coarse, red-brick structure appeared in the beautiful garden, the townsfolk were puzzled. Soon, the villagers began to grow suspicious of the red-brick workshop, and whenever they gathered, they spoke of it.

One afternoon, while Daimler and Maybach were deeply engaged in researching the Petronium engine, Mrs. Chirner, who lived nearby, set out to visit her friend Mrs. Rothe. Carrying a basket of bread she had just baked, she imagined happily sharing it with Mrs. Rothe as she walked past the workshop. Suddenly, Mrs. Chirner heard a loud pounding sound and caught a whiff of something burning. Frowning at the unfamiliar smell, she looked around. The only thing she could see was the strange red-brick workshop recently built by the new neighbors. From it came a stench and the smell of oil, along with a loud rumbling noise. Wrinkling her nose, she hurried along and soon reached Mrs. Rothe’s house. Mrs. Rothe welcomed her warmly, prepared tea, and soon they were chatting.

“Rothe, on my way here, I’m certain something suspicious is going on in that red-brick workshop.”

“What kind of suspicion?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly see anything, but I smelled something burning, something oily, and heard strange pounding noises. I think they’re making something inside that workshop we don’t know about.”

“I think you may be right. Usually, bad deeds are carried out in secret. Why else would they build that red-brick workshop in secret and work inside it, hidden from others?”

“Then what on earth could they be making in there?”

“Who knows? Could they be counterfeiters? Or maybe producing fake goods?”

“Oh, that could be it. What if it’s true?”

“Of course, we’d have to report it to the police.”

The conversation between Mrs. Chirner and Mrs. Rothe quickly spread throughout the village. Rumors tend to grow as they pass from person to person, and soon Daimler and Maybach were being branded as counterfeiters or criminals without even realizing it.

The villagers began to keep an even closer watch on the red-brick workshop. Meanwhile, Daimler and Maybach came to a completely different conclusion. As cutting-edge engineers of their time, they suspected someone was spying on their Petronium engine development. Especially since they had left Deutz due to conflicts with Otto, they even thought Otto had sent spies. Because of this, Daimler and Maybach conducted their research with even greater secrecy—while the villagers, in turn, grew even more suspicious.

The site of Daimler and Maybach’s workshop was recorded as being a red-brick structure, but since it now appears as a white-painted building with a beautiful garden, it seems to have been destroyed during the war and later rebuilt.

Then, one day, a villager took matters into his own hands. Convinced Daimler and Maybach were criminals, he reported them to the police. While Daimler and Maybach were in the middle of testing the Petronium engine, loud knocks suddenly rattled the workshop door, accompanied by a commanding voice:

“Open the door! This is the police. The building is surrounded.”

The two looked at each other, bewildered.

“Surrounded?”

Daimler opened the small window in the iron door to see who it was. Outside stood several policemen, with a large crowd of villagers behind them. Puzzled, Daimler asked the policeman at the door:

“What is the matter?”

“We’ve received a report from the villagers. They claim counterfeit or suspicious goods are being manufactured here. We must investigate the premises. Open the door at once.”

Inside, Daimler and Maybach were dumbfounded.

“Counterfeit goods?”

Bursting into laughter, Daimler and Maybach eventually opened the door. They realized the “spies” they had suspected were none other than their neighbors, and that these neighbors believed they were producing counterfeit items. The idea was so absurd they could only laugh. Still, they admitted it was understandable—their secretive work would naturally arouse suspicion.

To clear up the misunderstanding, Daimler and Maybach opened the workshop and allowed the police and villagers inside. What they saw was a clutter of machines and, at the far end, a black engine prototype.

“What exactly are you doing here?” asked a policeman.

Daimler replied:

“We are engineers who design and build engines. We’re currently developing a new one, but the process is noisy and messy. That’s why we built this brick workshop, to keep the noise and dirt contained. We should have asked for the neighborhood’s understanding first, and because we didn’t, this commotion occurred. That was my oversight.”

In truth, Daimler concealed part of the reason. It wasn’t only about noise and mess—he was more worried about the leakage of their engine technology, so the brick workshop was built to secure secrecy.

Because of this incident, the neighbors came to better understand Daimler and Maybach, and even grew fond of them.

As their extensive research and testing continued, Maybach discovered a British-owned patent by Watson. The content of Watson’s patent was precisely the key element Daimler and Maybach had been seeking for their high-speed engine: the non-adjustable hot-tube ignition device. Overjoyed, Daimler and Maybach built upon this hot-tube principle, and in 1883, they successfully developed the first horizontal engine.