Getting back to my visit to the Deeley Motorcycle Exhibition in British Columbia, here’s something that goes waaaaaay back in time…sort of.
As a reminder, here’s what I’ve featured from the museum so far:
Harley-Davidson Nova Prototype
CCM Lightweight De Luxe
Norton/NSU Special
The Daimler Reitwagen (which translates to “Riding car” of 1885 is considered by many to be the first proper motorcycle. It’s definitely the first gasoline internal combustion motorcycle, at least. The 264cc four-stroke single (crank start, thank you very much) was good for .5 horsepower and a top speed of roughly 6-7 miles per hour.
Per the museum: “Originally the Reitwagen was supposed to be a test bed for Daimler’s new engine, not the beginning of a new line of transportation vehicles. In November 1885, Daimler’s younger son, Adolf, made the first journey on it from Cannstatt to Unterurkheim, a distance of 88 kilometers.” During that journey, the seat caught on fire as the “hot tube ignition” was right underneath!
The original design utilized a belt final drive, though the evolution ended up with a pinion gear final drive (along with a fix for the whole “seat on fire” thing).
The engine was mounted on rubber blocks inside the wooden frame, which was connected to two wooden wheels (with iron tread) as well as smaller spring-loaded outrigger wheels to help keep it vertical.
Must be fun to steer something with zero rake.
There are some replicas all around the world – Honda has one at Twin Ring Motegi in their Collection Hall, Mercedes obviously has one at their museum in Stuttgart, there’s one at the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in Ohio, one at the Deutsches Museum in Munich (the one that got loaned to the final run of the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit when it was at the Guggenheim Las Vegas), and of course the one at Deeley. Back to the museum: “Three builds of this unique masterpiece were commissioned by Mercedes-Daimler in 2007, built from Daimler’s original blueprints that had been stored in their vaults for over a century. Mercedes-Daimler agreed to part with one to the Deeley Exhibition once we demonstrated the exacting care we take with our museum artifacts.”
