The Test Drive

Today's curiosities are all on wheels, so climb in and enjoy the adventure.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
Everybody remembers the first time they learned to ride a bike.
They have memories of spending their childhood in the saddle,
holding those handlebars and cruising around the neighborhood. The bicycle, though,
wasn't always an instrument of glory for Gino Bartali. In fact,
it was just a way to get to school. Gino
was born in nineteen fourteen to a working class family

(00:57):
in a small village in Tuscany, Italy. By the time
he was eleven, he needed to find a way to
get to Florence every day for school. A car was
out of the question, so Gino saved his money to
buy his first bike. He quickly fell in love with
racing through the Tuscan countryside. He started taking cycling seriously,
and at the age of seventeen, in nineteen thirty one,

(01:18):
he won his very first bike race. By his twenties,
all those long bike rides across Tuscany began to pay off.
In nineteen thirty six, at the age of twenty two,
he biked twenty one days and over two thousand miles
to win the Giro Detelia, the biggest bike race in Italy.
His fame was immediate. Tuscans loved that they could see
their champion training most days on the same country roads

(01:42):
that they drove. He cemented his hometown hero status when
he won the race again in nineteen thirty seven, and
his fame grew to a fever pitch in nineteen thirty
eight when he won the biggest bike race in the world,
the Tour de Frontce. But despite those fans, Gino's achievement
was not met with national pride. There was no hero's
welcome when he came home to Italy, no ceremony or

(02:04):
gala in his honor, Because on the national stage right
as he proved the athletic might of Italians, Gino refused
to dedicate his win to Benito Mussolini. Fascist dictator. Mussolini
had ruled Italy for sixteen years. He had modeled his
government on the Nazi Party in nearby Germany, and in
nineteen thirty eight, the same year as Gino's win, he

(02:26):
signed Italy's version of the Nuremberg Laws. The freedoms of
Italian Jews were severely limited, and these laws would eventually
let Italy deport them to Nazi concentration camps. By refusing
to dedicate his Tour de France medal to Mussolini, Gino
was publicly indicating his disapproval. Over the next few years,
his distaste for the fascists drove him to action. Italy

(02:49):
entered World War II in nineteen forty, joining the Nazis
against the Allies. By nineteen forty three, Mussolini had been
overthrown and Germany invaded North Italy, including Gino's home province
of Tuscany, and as a result, the deportation and imprisonment
of Jewish people was becoming more widespread. Yet at the
same time, a resistance movement was growing. A network of

(03:12):
religious leaders, including undercover rabbis, monks, and Catholic archbishops, were
looking for ways to protect Italian Jewish families from the Nazis,
and it was one of these resistance members, Florentine Cardinal
Elia de la Costa, who asked Bartali for help with
his cover story. As a cycling champion taking cross country
training rides, he was the perfect spy For the next year.

(03:35):
Bartali rode back and forth across the countryside, transporting photographs
of Jewish people to forgers, then bringing fake IDs and
travel visas back to the families. He distributed funds to
people in hiding, and even brought one group of refugees
to the Swiss border hidden in a cart attached to
his bike. At the same time, he hid a Florentine

(03:56):
Jewish family in his basement. At first, travels weren't questioned.
Even when he was stopped by Fascist police and German soldiers,
he would insist that they not touch his bike, as
it was perfectly calibrated for him. They agreed, and the
documents hidden in his bike frame and handlebars remained undiscovered.
As time went on. However, even famous cyclist Gino Bartali

(04:19):
fell under suspicion. He was questioned in the La Villa Triste,
a government building in Florence where Fascist officials tortured prisoners.
Florence was finally freed of Nazi occupation on August eleventh
of nineteen forty four. As the war came to an end,
Gino never told anyone about what he had done for
the Jewish families of Italy. Instead, he focused on training,

(04:40):
overcoming the malnourishment he suffered during the war to win
the Tour de France one last time in nineteen forty eight.
After Gino died in twenty ten, his story finally came
to light. In twenty thirteen, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center
awarded him the title Righteous among the Nations, an honor
he shares with Oscar Schindler and others who risked their

(05:02):
lives to save Jewish people during the war. After his death,
Gino's son told a newspaper what his father said in
those rare moments that he mentioned the war. Real heroes,
he said, are those who have suffered in their soul,
in their heart, in their spirits, in their mind for
their loved ones. Those are the real heroes. I am

(05:23):
just a cyclist. Bertha was at her wits end. It
wasn't that she didn't love her husband, or even that

(05:43):
she didn't believe him. The problem was that Karl had
lost faith in himself, and after everything that Bertha had
sacrificed that was just unacceptable. For the previous fifteen years,
she had devoted every ounce of energy to Carl's dreams,
from using her dowry to save him from bankruptcy and
managing his business to raising their children while he tinkered

(06:05):
in his lab. She had done it all. She even
served as his assistant and partner, pouring countless hours into
his invention. Two years prior they had finally unveiled it
to the public. Bertha had stood proudly by Carl's side
during the demonstration. Now, as a married woman, her name
could not legally appear on the patent application, but she
still felt that this was her greatest accomplishment. Unfortunately, the

(06:29):
public didn't agree. The unveiling received a tepid response. Carl
was crushed and now believed that the business would never
be profitable. Bertha had tried to lift his spirits to
no avail, and she finally had enough. So one morning
in early August, she woke before dawn and roused her
two teenage sons the trio. Quietly opened the garage and

(06:50):
pushed the car to the road where Carl wouldn't hear
the engine start, and then they set off on their journey.
A short while later, Carl woke to find the house
quiet and empty. A note on the dining room table
explained that Bertha had taken the boys and the car
to visit her parents in Forsheim, roughly sixty five miles away,
and when Carl read that, his blood ran cold. Because

(07:11):
the year was eighteen eighty eight. Carl was Carl Ben's,
creator of the world's first true automobile, and the car
Bertha had just driven often was his prototype. Carl immediately
flew into a panic. His invention had never been subjected
to this kind of test, no gas powered vehicle ever had.
The unpaved roads between Mannheim and Forsheim were designed for

(07:33):
sturdy horses and carriages, not the flimsy tires of his
three wheeled prototype, and with all the hills and uneven
terrain they'd be facing, there were countless things that could
go wrong. But it was too late to dissuade Bertha,
and with no way of getting in touch with her,
Carl was forced to wait for news. He soon learned
the details of his wife's journey from the local papers,

(07:54):
which followed the test ride with eager interest. The journey
had not gone smoothly. Of course, the engine had to
be doused with water every few miles to keep it
from overheating, and just as Carl feared, the car kept
breaking down, forcing Bertha to find increasingly inventive solutions to
get it started again. When the fuel line cogged, she
cleared it with her hat pin. When the brakes failed,

(08:16):
she hired a cobbler to add leather to the pads.
She bought fuel from a skeptical pharmacist, and enlisted locals
to help her push the car up a steep hill.
The most exciting moment, though at least as far as
the male journalists were concerned, came when the vehicle's ignition
cable shorted out. Bertha stripped off her garter and used
the fabric to insulate the exposed wire, and despite all

(08:39):
the obstacles, she reached foresim late that evening and telegraphed
to tell Carl that she and the boys were safe.
By the time she made the return trip a few
days later, word of the test drive had spread around
the globe. No one cared that the car had broken
down several times along the way. The image of a
young mother taking her children for a drive through the countryside,
had captured the public consciousness, and it wasn't letting go anytime.

(09:03):
Soon heard this plan had worked perfectly. She had proven
that there was demand for her husband's invention while bringing
their company all the publicity they would ever need. And
she came back with something else too, a list of
potential improvements inspired by her time on the road, and Carl, well,
he got straight to work. I hope you've enjoyed today's

(09:28):
guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all

(09:50):
about it over at the Worldolore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.