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JOO ~ears
of motor~eles
From wood.and
iron to aluminum
and steel
By Michl Koch
One hun dred years ago, the German Gottl ieb Daimler invented the motor vehicle. He
cas ually built a wooden frame around his
little engine; this was not going to be the
only unusu al incident in th e
varying hi story of motorcycle
technology.
One could imagin e it being
14
lik e th e beginning o f th e world as
described in th e Bibl e. Daimler , in
h is th oughts . . . and h e to ld him self
to bu ild engines a nd moto r vehicles
and soon th e entire world would be
populated with th e rattl e of gas ca r.
ri ages.
Reali sti cally, everything went a lot
slo wer. The investo rs of th e huge gas
eng ine factories be gg ed Daimler a nd
his partner , Wilhelm Maybach, to
pl ea se forget a bo ut this crazy id ea o f
building motor vehicles. T he future
of th e industr y belonged to industrial
gas en gines a nd not to motorized
vehicl es.
It was su re a lot eas ie r to sell a gas
eng ine th an a motor vehicle, because
th ere wer e a lrea dy h orses a nd carri ages ava ila ble for tran sportati o~ ,
and th ey had p rov en useful a nd relia ble for ove r 1000 years, without a
problem.
Daimler and Mayba ch looked at
this ga s engine and shook their heads. '
A IO-horsepo wer fo ur-stro ke en gine
at the time weighed a bout 8000 pounds
and had a ma ximum speed o f 200
rpm. That power o u tpu t was j us t
eno ug h to d rive a n electric ge nera tor.
Da iml er a nd Maybach needed a
sma ll, lightweight, h igh er-revvin g
engi ne. ? uc h a thing was not a vaila ble, so ih ev had to build o ne th emselves.
'
.
They we nt to a ch urch bell cas ter
and short ly afterwards th e first 85mmbore cyli nde r wa s cast. It didn 't hav e
cooling fins, beca use Maybach wanted
to apply th ermal ins u la tio n and
wanted it be self-ign i ti ng, like a d iese l engi ne. But this didn't work immed ia tel y, so th ey decided t_ se a
g lo w-tube ign ition .
Th e fir st 250cc motor turned o ut so
sm all a nd tiny its ni ckname "grand father clock" di sappe a red wh en they
wer e g ra nted p a tent number 34926 in
Au gust of 1885.
Beca use th e wooden motorcycle
wa s wobb ly, trainin g wheels had to
be added . Daimler 's so n, Pau l, was
chosen to do th e fir st test ride because
Daimler didn 't trust h is o wn riding
ex pe rie nce. His wife didn 't trust th e
proj ect a t a ll, so Daim ler a nd his son
sch ed u led the first test rid e whi le
Mr s. Daiml er was a tte n d i n g a
women 's club meeting. Apparentl y,
yo u ng Paul had fun with his first
motorcycl e ride beca use he drove from
Ca n ns ta tt to U n ter tu rkhe im (ap p ro ximately three m iles ) before running
right into h is mother's a rm s. Sh e
rea cted like every moth er a nd he was
o ff th e motorcycl e. Emma Daimler
wa s so furiou,.s at her two boys that
th e ent ire project was banned into th e
bas em ent for o ne year.
One yea r a fter th e fir st test rid e in
th e wo rl d , p robabl y th e fir st a u to
ro lled th rough Ca n ns ta d t (whe re
Mer ced es Benz arc bu ilt ). but we do
not kn ow th is for su re because fath er
a nd so n were bei ng rea l carefu l n ot to
get ca ugh t by mother Emma aga in .
Tes ters fro m Germa ny's Mot o rra d ma gazine to o k Da im le r's .R id i ng
Wh eel proto type fo r a test ride in th e
fall of 1984 a nd the machin e sti ll
mad e a good impression . It o n ly had
two problems: the trai ni ng wheels
were more irritati ng tha n useful. a nd
a bove th e norma l speed of 6 kph th e
wind blew o ut the ignitio n 's g lo wing
tube a nd th e r ide had to be a bo rted
seve ral ti mes.
T he second mot o rcycle was a lot
fas ter: it was also th e fi~s t production
m o torcycle in h istory. T he Hildebrand a nd Wolfmuller was built in
1894 and th e co m pa ny's bro chu re
sa id it was breathtak ing ly fast. But
th er e was no o ne o u t th er e a t th e time
wh o wanted to ride a t a risky 60 kph.
T he loca l new spa pers spread rum o rs
th at a bo ve th e spee d o f 10 k ph, th e
intake o f a ir into th e body co u ld
ca use a person'to exp lode . But nobody
n oticed th at trains a lrea dy went a lot
faster without exp lod ing passen gers.
Th e Hildeb rand was extre m ely fast
wh en th e g lo w tube of th e eng ine was
burnin g co rrec tly; but th e difficulty
of keeping th e gl ow tu be burning
m ade motorcycl e r ide rs reall y a p precia te it wh en th e first magneto ignition was adde d. A knittin g-m achine
fa ctory wa s co n verted int o a m ot or cycle factory in th e year o f 1900 and
th ey bu ilt th e first 100 Neckarsu lm er
(NSU) motor cycles; th e ma chines were
very si m ilar to th e 7000 bicycles th ey
were producing per year.
Th e German army w su p p lied
as
with N SU motorcycles to test a nd
durin g ma ne u vers th ey were declared
reliable in every respect. Which proved
th at th e a rmy was n' t very demanding
since th e mot o rcycle had a slippery
belt-drive, slidi ng wood en brak es and
n o clu tch , Still , a fter th e test, th e military decided to buy mo torcycles. Th e
Ch emnitzer facto ry built the mo torcycl e a t a g rea t ex pe ns e with man y
details, a nd it was, fo r its day, a very
,
reIia ble mo torcycle.
It had a two-speed gea rbo x a nd a
rear hub whi ch mad e cha nging tires
reall y d iffi cult. At th e time, Wandere r a lready had ava ila ble a n eng ine
w i th int egrat ed gea rbox a nd kic k
sta rter. but th e milit a rv decl ined it,
sayi ng it hadn 't been th o roughl y tested . Th e Arm y got tired o f co m p lica ted rear wh eel cha nges a nd a tte m p ted modifi cations , but with ver y litt le
success.
The fir st Kokkerell sported a fivecylinde r ra dia l engi ne in th e rear
wh eel ; lat er th e engine was positioned
in th e front wheel. T his was ver y
co m p lica ted, but it was fast en o ug h
to run awa y from th e fastest versions
of th e new , unsuspended BMW o ppos ed-twin. It wa s 1923 wh en th e
BMW wa s put o n th e market, in th e
midst o f th e G erman depression. The
pri ce wa s 2200 billion (de va lue d)
German ma rk s.
But people found out soon that th e
new 500cc BMW en gine wa s th e top
of th e motorcycle line. Not only beca use it required less servicing, but
a lso because BMW got 8.5 horsepower
out o f th e ha lf-li ter displacem ent.
Mo torcycle magazines wer e swearing
up a nd down that th e claim ed horsepower figure was understat ed .
At that time th e fa stest G erman
superbik es need ed an ent ire one-liter
o f displacement for one horsepower
or less . H owever , th e modern BMW
engines o n ly ran behind th e co m peu tion in th eir first year, even th ough
the o wne r's manua l su ggested rernov-
"
