Karl Friedrich Benz (November 25, 1844 – April 4, 1929) is a German engine designer and car engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile, and together with Bertha Benz a pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz.
Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working as partners, also work on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz patents his work first, and subsequently patents all the processes that make the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile.
In 1879, his first engine patent is granted to him and in 1886 Benz is granted a patent for his first automobile.