Driving the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen at Pebble Beach With a Breguet Marine 5517 on My Wrist

Supercars, in a way, are like tool watches. They chase superlatives like fastest and lightest the way tool watches seek out the deepest and most durable. (Leave it to Rolex to nail it with "Superlative Chronometer" on the Submariner, but that's for another story.)

During Monterey Car Week, whether it was the 1,578-horsepower Bugatti Destrier, a one-of-one creation from Bugatti's Programme Solitaire, built around the carbon-fiber structure and quad-turbocharged 8.0-liter W16 of the track-only Bolide, or the re-introduction of the SV badge thanks to the naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 Revuelto SV, which works with three electric motors to create the most powerful and fastest production Lamborghini ever built, the continuation of superlative chasing was well in order. That's not including the McL 6GT, a Can-Am-inspired road car once pitched by Bruce McLaren that is slated for 2028 production and equipped with a V8 and a manual transmission, the first manual in production McLaren since the F1.

The 1886 Patent-Motorwagen from Mercedes-Benz could check the box of "oldest," always a competition, but I wasn't prepared for the one-two punch of "most fun" and "slowest" car I'd drive all weekend.

Every year, there's a section of Ondulado Road at the most heavily policed three-way intersection of Pebble Beach where Mercedes-Benz plucks a few cars from its Classic Center and offers them up for drives to a special few. This year, I piloted the single-cylinder, single-spark-plug 1886 Motorwagen. "A faithful replica," Mercedes-Benz Classic Center's Nathan Lander told me, as he added a precise amount of highly flammable ligroin fuel to the fuel tank. 

I checked the time; my watch of choice for the week, and for this drive in particular, was the Breguet Marine 5517 in 18-karat rose gold. In watch years, this too is an oldie-but-goodie, released in 2018. With its hand-engraved wave guilloché center and applied Roman numeral hour markers, it felt both vintage and modern, as most Breguets do.

After two calculated spins (think of throwing a hula-hoop sized frisbee), and in spite of its daunting internal physics, the machine that started the automobile caught. Climbing into the bench seat felt more like climbing into a horseless carriage that received what felt like a single oversized bicycle tire as a front end. Right hand for the crank that steers the unsprung front wheel through a toothed rack, which felt like operating a sailboat winch. Left hand for the lever: forward put the car in motion, backward brought it to a stop. It was surprisingly easy to pilot.

Lander let me open her up on Ondulado Road. For that 0.3-mile stretch, the expression on my face, as documented here, was pure glee. Never mind that we were, somehow, still working on a superlative (fastest speed of the morning, which we achieved at 13 mph). The entirety of my thoughts focused on steering, braking and not breaking the vehicle. Driving it without a windshield, restraints or a horn was elemental and thrilling.

The 5517 carries the maritime detailing without heavily leaning on it thanks to the seconds hand counterweight, a maritime signal flag bearing Breguet's initial. Then there's the screwed crown, ringed with wave decoration, and the sapphire back which shows an oscillating weight Breguet describes as reminiscent of a rudder. Inside is the automatic caliber 777A: 235 components, 4 Hz, a flat silicon balance spring, 55 hours of reserve.

Despite the rows of supercars, hypercars, custom resto-mods and vintage vehicles headed to auction, everybody yielded to the Motorwagen.