Gottlieb Daimler built the first practical gasoline engine in a garden shed so secretive that his neighbors reported him to the police, convinced he was counterfeiting money. He and Wilhelm Maybach worked in isolation, developed the high-speed internal combustion engine, and installed it in a carriage — creating what many historians consider the first true automobile, independent of and concurrent with Karl Benz’s work thirty miles away.

This episode traces Daimler from his Swabian workshop training through the partnership with Maybach, the secret garden shed experiments, and the engine that powered the automotive revolution.

• Daimler’s engineering training and the partnership with Wilhelm Maybach that produced the breakthrough
• The secret garden shed laboratory and the police investigation triggered by suspicious neighbors
• The high-speed gasoline engine and the first motorized carriage
• The founding of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and the eventual merger with Benz that created Mercedes-Benz