 He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886.Karl Benz was born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant, on 25 November 1844 in Mühlburg, now a borough of Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, which is part of modern (Germany), to Josephine Vaillant and a locomotive driver, Johann Georg Benz, whom she married a few months later.According to German law, the child acquired the name "Benz" by legal marriage of his parents Benz and Vaillant.