The Daimler Reitwagen (“riding car”) or Einspur (“single track”) was a motor vehicle made by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1885. It is widely recognized as the first motorcycle. Daimler is often called “the father of the motorcycle” for this invention. Even when the steam powered two-wheelers that preceded the Reitwagen, the Michaux-Perreaux…
Daimler and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm Maybach were two inventors whose goal was to create small, high-speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device. In 1883 they designed a horizontal cylinder layout compressed charge liquid petroleum engine that fulfilled Daimler’s desire for a high-speed engine which could be throttled, making…