The First Mass Produced Motorcycle

At lunch today Michelle's uncle (who I THINK rides a Victory) commented on Harley Davidson to be the first mass produced motorcycle (I believed this the same way I believe Al Gore invented the internet). This led me to do a bit of research (it's raining and I have nothing better to do, besides I wanted to know for myself). I actually found quite a bit of interesting info on the history of motorcycles, I thought I'd share.


In 1889, Heinrich and Wilhelm Hildebrand of Munich made a prototype motorcycle using a small steam engine. After their prototype steam motorcycle, the brothers joined with Alois Wolfmuller to manufacture a design patented by Wolfmuller and Hans Geisenhoff in 1894. It is considered to be the first production motorcycle, it was made in both Germany and France until 1896. The engine was a twin cylinder, water cooled, four stroke with 1488cc. The pistons traveled together (firing alternately) with their connecting rods pushing cranks on the rear wheel, like a locomotive engine. The rear wheel acted like a flywheel and it used rubber bands to pull the pistons back up the cylinders.

The first really successful production two-wheeler, it had a step-through frame, with its fuel tank mounted on the downtube. The engine was a parallel-twin, mounted low on the frame, with its cylinders going fore-and-aft. The connecting rods connected directly to a crank on the rear axle, and instead of using heavy flywheels for energy storage between cylinder-firing, it used a pair of stout elastic bands, one on each side outboard of the cylinders, to help out on the compression strokes. It was water-cooled, and had a water tank/radiator built into the top of the rear fender.

The first mass-production motor driven cycle to be manufactured in the United States was the 1900 Orient Motor Cycle designed by Charles H. Metz of the Waltham Manufacturing Company in Waltham, Massachusetts.

1902, First Indian motorcycles, featuring innovative belt-drives and streamlined styling, sold to public. Indian is America's oldest motorcycle brand and was once the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. The most popular models were the Scout, made prior to WWII, and the Chief, which had its heyday from 1922-53.

In 1906, Harley and the Davidsons built their first factory, that year around 50 motorcycles were produced. In 1969, American Machinery and Foundry (AMF, the bowling lane people) bought the company, streamlined production, and slashed the workforce. This tactic resulted in a labor strike and a lower quality of bikes. The bikes were expensive and inferior in performance, handling, and quality to Japanese motorcycles. Sales declined, quality plummeted, and the company almost went bankrupt.[31] The "Harley-Davidson" name was mocked as "Hardly Ableson", "Hardly Driveable," and "Hogly Ferguson",[32][33] and the nickname "Hog" became pejorative.

The first motorcycle powered by an internal combustion (gas) engine was built by Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) and Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929) in 1885, and called the "Einspur." Their company, the Daimler Motor Company of Stuttgart, Germany was formed after the two left their employment at Deutz Gasmotorenfabrik AG, where Daimler worked as their technical director. Daimler's engine was based on the "Otto-Cycle" engine, designed three years earlier by Eugen Langen and Dr. Nikolaus Otto, who was a co-owner of Deutz Gasmotorenfabrik. Otto's engine was based on the earlier work of Alphonse Beau de Rochas in the early 1860s.

source: the interweb