Widely recognized as the "father" of the gas engine, German born Gottleib Daimler was a gunsmith turned engineer, who collaborated with Wilhelm Maybach to produce the first powered two-wheeler equipped with an internal combustion engine...

Created in 1885, the Daimler, was powered by a 264cc single cylinder, four-stroke engine. With it's wooden frame and steel-rimmed wooden wheels, was extremely crude by today's standards but at the time it was considered a "miracle", powered by the new miraculous fuel, benzine (petrol).

The engine was started with a crank handle. It had two fly wheels, one on either side of the crankshaft and the entire assembly was enclosed within a cast aluminum crankcase. It employed a couple features that appeared on later motorcycle designs, for example, the rear wheel was belt driven and the fan cooled engine was mounted on rubber blocks.


Notable aspects of the Petroleum Reitwagen design included almost) conventional handlebars, and evaporating carburetor and heated tube ignition.

Daimler took out a patent on his design on 29th August 1885, but he soon came to the conclusion that the prototype engine was not powerful enough and that the "Petroleum Reitwagen" as it was called, was a bone shaking, unbalanced machine .. that was extremely difficult to ride, unaided by the dire condition of the roads of it's time.

Being the genuine visionary that he was, Daimler decided to concentrate his efforts on the "horseless carriage" - the forerunner of the modern car - so the Petroleum Reitwagen was left to end up in it's fated home where it can still be seen today, the Daimler-Benz museum in Stuttgart-Untertufurkheim, Germany.

Daimler's dream was for his engines to serve the whole of humanity and lived to see them in use on water, land and air. He died three years prior to the Wright brothers' first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, in the United States, but he did witness his engines powering a balloon flight, an early motorboat and of course, wheeled vehicles.


Link: http://gottliebdaimler.com/

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