Daimler Reitwagen

1885 · Wooden Frame Motorcycle · Work 241 of 1,871

Daimler Reitwagen, 1885, Wooden Frame Motorcycle

A wooden-framed two-wheeled machine with a tall vertical single-cylinder combustion engine mounted prominently below the saddle, a drive belt running from the engine to the rear wheel, small outrigger wheels on each side, standing in a workshop yard.

What it was used for
Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach built the wooden two-wheeler in their Cannstatt workshop as a test vehicle to try their small high-speed engine on the road; Mercedes-Benz lists it as an experimental vehicle, one unit, not for sale. Patent application per the Mercedes-Benz chronicle on 29 August 1885 (the same archive's Daimler biography gives 28 August), DRP 36 423, issued 11 August 1886. First ride on 10 November 1885 from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim and back, up to 12 km/h. Who rode is disputed: the Mercedes-Benz archive names son Adolf, other accounts son Paul. Distance figures vary between about 3 km and about 6 km for the round trip.
What was new
The engine was small and light enough for a two-wheeler: per the Mercedes-Benz archive 264 cc, 0.5 hp at 600 rpm (the Untertürkheim web portal gives 750 rpm), mounted under the seat, kerb weight 90 kg. Mercedes-Benz calls it the world's first motorcycle; that is the manufacturer's count. In fact it was no motorcycle in today's sense: outrigger wheels kept it upright, it had no clutch, and its two gears could only be changed at a standstill. How much is due to Daimler and how much to Maybach is, per the Mercedes-Benz archive, still unresolved by research. The original burned in 1903 in the fire at the Daimler works in Cannstatt; the machines shown today are replicas.

Further reading