Knowledge without frontiers Knowledge Without Frontiers | Page 22

Codelli in his first car, 1898.
Technical Museum of Slovenia.
THE DEVIL'S CHARIOT
Codelli had bought himself a car, a Benz Velo
Comfortable, in Vienna as early as in 1898. The
initial thrill quickly wore off, for he encountered
a series of problems as he made his way to Lju-
bljana. To top it off, he crashed into an unlit toll
station just before arriving in the city. Not want-
ing the first car ever to be seen in Ljubljana to
be such a wreck, he brought it home in the dead
of night and had it repaired, before he showed
it off to the locals. Alas, the people of Ljubljana
were not very keen on it. They named the car
the Devil’s Chariot and pressed against the wall
in fear whenever Codelli “raced” through the
narrow streets.
22