Daimler and his lifelong business partnerWilhelm 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 bethrottled, making it useful in transportation applications. This engine was called Daimler's Dream.[2]
In 1885 they designed a vertical cylinder version of this engine which they subsequently fitted to a two-wheeler, the firstinternal combustionmotorcycle which was named thePetroleum Reitwagen (Riding Car) and, in the next year, to acoach, and a boat. Daimler called this engine the grandfather clock engine (Standuhr) because of its resemblance to a large pendulum clock.
In 1890, they converted their partnership into a stock companyDaimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG, in English – the Daimler Motors Corporation). They sold their first automobile in 1892. Daimler fell ill and took a break from the business. Upon his return he experienced difficulty with the other stockholders that led to his resignation in 1893. This was reversed in 1894. Maybach resigned at the same time, and also returned. Daimler died in 1900 and Wilhelm Maybach quit DMG in 1907.
Daimler is seen as "the father of the motorcycle".[3][4][5]
Daimler's birthplace in Schorndorf, now a small museum
Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was born on 17 March 1834 in the town ofSchorndorf nearStuttgart,Kingdom of Württemberg, a federal state of theGerman Confederation, in what is now Germany. His parents were Johannes Däumler (Daimler), a baker, and his wife Frederika. By the age of 13 (1847), he had completed six years of primary studies inLateinschule and became interested in engineering.
After completing secondary school in 1848, Daimler had trained as a gunsmith under Master Gunsmith Hermann Raithel. In 1852 he ended the training with the trade examination.[6][7] He graduated in 1852, passing the craft test with a pair ofengraved double-barreledpistols.[7] The same year, at eighteen, Daimler decided to take upmechanical engineering, abandoning gunsmithing,[7] and left his hometown.
Daimler enrolled at Stuttgart's School for Advanced Training in the Industrial Arts, under the tutelage ofFerdinand von Steinbeis. Daimler was studious, even taking extra Sunday morning classes. In 1853, Daimler, with Steinbeis' assistance, got work at "the factory college",Rollé und Schwilque (R&S) inGrafenstaden, so-called because its manager, Friedrich Messmer, had been an instructor at theUniversity of Karlsruhe.[7] Daimler performed well, and when Rollé und Schwilque began making railwaylocomotives in 1856, Daimler, then 22, was named foreman.[7]
Instead of staying, Daimler took two years atStuttgart's Polytechnic Institute to hone his skills, gaining in-depth understanding of steam locomotives, as well as "a profound conviction" steam was destined to be superseded.[7] He conceived small, cheap, simple engines for light industrial use, possibly inspired by the newly developed gas engines of that era.[7]
In 1861, he resigned from R&S, visiting Paris, then went on to England, working with the country's top engineering firms, becoming knowledgeable withmachine tools. He spent from autumn 1861 to summer 1863 in England, then regarded as "the motherland of technology",[8] atBeyer, Peacock & Company,Manchester, whose partner Beyer was from Saxony.[9] While in London, he visited the1862 International Exhibition, where one of the exhibits was asteam carriage.[7] These carriages did not evidently inspire him, however, for his wish was to improve machine tools for metal and woodworking machinery.[7]
Daimler went to work for Maschinenfabrik Daniel Straub,[10]Geislingen an der Steige, where he designed tools, mills, and turbines. In 1863, he joined theBruderhaus Reutlingen, aChristian Socialist toolmaker, as inspector and later executive. While there, he metWilhelm Maybach, then a 15-year-old orphan.[7]: 482 Thanks to Daimler's organizational skills, the factory managed to show a profit, but he quit in frustration in 1869, joiningMaschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe in July.[7]: 482
When in 1872 N.A. Otto and Cie[11] reorganized asGasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz, management picked Daimler as factory manager, bypassing even Otto, and Daimler joined the company in August, bringing in Maybach as chief designer.[7]: 482 While Daimler managed to improve production, the weakness in Otto's vertical piston design, coupled to Daimler's stubborn insistence onatmospheric engines, led the company to an impasse.[7]: 482 Neither Otto nor Daimler would give way, and when Daimler was offered the choice of founding a Deutz branch inSaint Petersburg or resigning, he resigned to set up shop in Cannstatt (financed by savings and shares in Deutz),[7]: 482–483 where he was shortly joined by Maybach.[7]: 482
In 1872 at age 38, Daimler and Maybach moved to work at the world's largest manufacturer of stationary engines at the time, theDeutz-AG-Gasmotorenfabrik inCologne.[citation needed] It was half-owned byNicolaus Otto, who was looking for a new technical director. As directors, both Daimler and Otto focused on gas-engine development while Maybach was chief designer.
In 1876, Otto developed a gaseous fuel, compressed chargefour-stroke cycle, (also known as the Otto Cycle) engine after 14 years of effort, a system characterized by four piston strokes (intake, compression, power, and exhaust). Otto intended that his invention would replace the steam engines predominant in those years, even though his engine was still primitive and inefficient.
Otto's engine was patented in 1877, but one of his 25 patents was soon challenged and overturned.[12] Daimler, who wanted to make his own engine, feared Otto's patent would prevent it. Daimler hired an attorney who found that a prior art patent for a four stroke engine had been issued in Paris in 1862 toBeau De Rochas, a French public works engineer.
Meanwhile, serious personal differences arose between Daimler and Otto, reportedly with Otto being jealous of Daimler, because of his university background and knowledge. Daimler wanted to build small engines that could be applied to transportation but Otto had no interest in this. When Otto excluded Daimler from his engine patents there was great animosity between the two. Daimler was fired in 1880, receiving 112,000Gold marks in Deutz-AG shares in compensation for the patents of both Daimler and Maybach. Maybach resigned later and followed Daimler.[13]
Independent inventor of small, high speed engines (1882)
Daimler's summer house (Cannstatt)Wilhelm Maybach ca. 1900
AtCannstatt, Daimler and the more creative thinking Maybach[7]: 482 devised their engine. At Daimler's insistence, it eliminated "the clumsy, complicated slide-valve ignition",[7]: 483 in favor of a hot tube system invented by an Englishman named Watson,[14] since electrical systems functioned too slowly.[7]: 483
In the summer of 1882, Daimler moved to Cannstatt (just outside of Stuttgart at that time), purchasing a cottage in Cannstatt's Taubenheimstrasse, with 75,000 Gold marks from the compensation from Deutz-AG. Maybach followed in September of that year. In the garden, they added a brick extension to the roomy glass-fronted summer house and this became their workshop. Their activities alarmed the neighbors who reported them to the police as suspected counterfeiters. The police obtained a key from the gardener and raided the house in their absence, but found only engines.[2]
Daimler and Maybach spent long hours debating how best to fuel Otto's four-stroke design, and turned to a commonly availablepetroleum fraction. The main distillates of petroleum at the time were lubricating oil,kerosene (burned as lamp fuel), andligroin (petroleumnaphtha or heavy naphtha), which up to then was used mainly as a cleaner and was sold in pharmacies. "Leichtbenzin [de] [i.e. ligroin and similar petroleum fractions] of a kind common and readily available atpharmacies (chemist's) at the time", as described by antique car expert Michael Plag. "This is a combustible fuel calledn-hexane."[15]
In late 1883, Daimler and Maybach patented the first of their engines fueled byligroin. This engine was patented on 16 December 1883. It achieved Daimler's goal of being small and running fast enough to be useful at 750 rpm.[16] Improved designs in the next four years brought that up to 900 rpm.[16] Daimler had three engines built to this design early in 1884, and a flywheel was included in one of the engines. This design was smaller and lighter than engines by other inventors of the time. Daimler relied on hot tube ignition, until 1897, when he adopted the electrical ignition designed byBosch.[16]
TheReitwagen (riding car), the first internal combustion motorcycle (1885)The 1885 Grandfather Clock Engine
The engine with the flywheel included was built into a light vehicle, called theReitwagen, the first vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.[16]
It took considerable effort and experimentation, but eventually, the duo perfected a .5 hp (0.37 kW; 0.51 PS) vertical single, which was fitted in theReitwagen, a purpose-built two-wheelerchassis with two spring-loadedstabilizers.[7]: 483
Daimler Motorcoach 1886Daimler 1885 Engine in a boat
Features of the 1885 Engine included:
a single horizontal cylinder of 264 cc, 16 cu in[17] (58 mm × 100 mm, 2.3 in × 3.9 in)[17]
In 1885, they created acarburetor which mixedgasoline with air allowing its use as fuel. In the same year Daimler and Maybach assembled a larger version of their engine, still relatively compact, but now with a vertical cylinder of 100 cc displacement and an output of 1hp at 600 rpm (patent DRP-28-022: "non-cooled, heat insulated engine with unregulated hot-tube ignition"). It was baptized theStanduhr ("grandfather clock"), because Daimler thought it resembled an old pendulum clock.
In November 1885, Daimler installed a smaller version of this engine in a wooden two wheeler frame with two outrigger wheels, creating the first internal combustion motorcycle (Patent 36-423impff & Sohn "Vehicle with gas or petroleum drive machine"). It was named theReitwagen (riding car). Maybach rode it for three kilometers (two miles) alongside the riverNeckar, from Cannstatt toUntertürkheim, reaching 12 kilometres per hour (7 mph).
Independently of each other,Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler each produced an automobile in 1886, both in Germany, about 60 miles apart.[20]
About sixty miles away in Mannheim, Karl Benz built anautomobile using an integral design for a motorized vehicle with one of his own engines. He was granted apatent for hismotorwagen on 29 January 1886.
When this proved the engine capable of driving a vehicle, Daimler devised a 1.1 hp (0.82 kW; 1.1 PS) single and ordered a Wimpff und Söhne four-seaterphaeton to house it.[7]: 483 Daimler's engine was installed byMaschinenfabrik Esslingen and drove the rear wheels through a dual-ratiobelt drive.[7]: 483
On 8 March 1886, Daimler and Maybach secretly brought an American Model coach made by Wilhelm Wimpff and Sohn into the house, telling the neighbors it was a birthday gift for Mrs. Daimler. Maybach supervised the installation of a larger 1.1 hp[17] 462 cc (28 cu in)[17] (70 mm × 120 mm, 2.8 in × 4.7 in)[17] version of the Grandfather Clock engine into this stagecoach and it became the first four-wheeled vehicle to reach 16 kilometres per hour (10 mph). The engine power was transmitted by a set of belts. As with the motorcycle, it was tested on the road to Untertürkheim where nowadays theMHPArena, formerly called the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion, is situated.
Driven by Daimler's desire to use the engine as many ways as possible,[17] Daimler and Maybach used the engine in other types of transport including:
on water (1886), by mounting it in a 4.5 m (15 ft) long boat and achieving a speed of 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph). The boat was calledNeckar after the river where it was tested. (patent DRP 39-367). This was the firstmotorboat and boat engines soon would become Daimler's main product for several years. The first customers expressed fear the petrol engine could explode, so Daimler hid the engine with a ceramic cover and told them it was "oil-electrical".
street-cars and trolleys.
in the air in Daimler's balloon, usually regarded as the first airship, where it replaced a hand-operated engine designed by Dr.Friedrich Hermann Wölfert ofLeipzig. With the new engine, Daimler successfully flew over Seelberg on 10 August 1888.
They sold their first foreign licenses for engines in 1887 and Maybach went as their representative to the1889 Paris Exposition to show their achievements.
Engine sales increased, mostly for use in boats, and in June 1887, Daimler bought another property at Seelberg hill, Cannstatt. It was located some distance from the town on Ludwigstraße 67 because Cannstatt's mayor did not approve of the workshop. Built at a cost 30,200 goldmarks, the new premises had room for 23 employees. Daimler managed the commercial issues while Maybach ran the engine design department.
In 1889, Daimler and Maybach built theStahlradwagen, their first automobile that did not involve adapting a horse-drawn carriage with their engine, but which was somewhat influenced by bicycle designs. There was no production in Germany, but it was licensed to be built in France and presented to the public in Paris in October 1889 by both engineers. The same year, Daimler's wife, Emma Kunz, died.
Daimler Motors, thePhönix engine, and the first motorcar sold (1890 to 1900)
With demand for engines growing, for uses in everything from motorboats to railcars,[7]: 483 Maybach and Daimler expanded. In 1890 Daimler founded his own engine business,Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG). With funding fromgunpowder makerMax Duttenhofer, industrialist, and bankerKilian von Steiner, and munitions manufacturerde:Wilhelm Lorenz,Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft was founded 28 November 1890, with Maybach as chief designer. Its purpose was the construction of small, high-speed engines for use on land, water, and air transport. The three uses were expressed by Daimler in a sketch that became the basis for a logo with a three-pointed star.
From 1882 until 1890, Daimler had resisted making his company into an incorporation or stock company. He had seen what happened to too many engineers who had pioneered a capital invention as he had. Many of them were forced out of their own companies by stock holders who "knew better" about how to run the company that they had just purchased than the man who founded the company. It happened toHenry Ford,Ransom Olds,Karl Benz, andAugust Horch.[citation needed]
Daimler hated having to incorporate his company. Unable to obtain majority control, he sold out and then resigned.[21] DMG expanded, but it changed. The newcomers, not believing in automobile production, ordered the creation of additional stationary engine building capacity, and considered merging DMG with Otto'sDeutz-AG.
In 1892, DMG finally sold its first automobile. DMG developed the high-speed inline-twoPhönix, for which Maybach invented a spraycarburettor.[7]: 483 This was fitted in a singularly ugly car,[7]: 483 which entered production in 1895 after a cessation of hostilities between Daimler, Maybach, and the DMG board.[7]: 483
Gottlieb Daimler, aged 58, had heart problems and suffered a collapse in the winter of 1892–1893. His doctor prescribed a trip toFlorence, where he met Lina Hartmann, a widow 22 years his junior who was the owner of the hotel where he was staying. They married on 8 July 1893, honeymooning inChicago during its World Fair.[22]
Returning from the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago with his new wife, Daimler had vowed to purchase enough shares of DMG to regain control. This effort failed. Daimler sold all his shares and patents and resigned from the company. Maybach had left earlier.[22]
The disputes with Lorenz continued. Daimler attempted to buy 102 extra shares to get a majority holding, but was forced out of his post as technical director. The corporation was 400,000 Gold marks in debt. The other directors threatened to declare bankruptcy if Daimler didn't sell them all his shares and all his personal patent rights from the previous thirty years. Daimler accepted the offer, receiving 66,666 Gold Marks, and resigned in 1893.
In 1894 at the Hermann Hotel, Maybach together with Daimler and his son Paul designed a third engine called the "Phoenix" and had DMG make it. It featured:
four cylinders cast in one block arranged vertically and parallel
camshaft operated exhaust valves
a spray nozzle carburetor, patented by Maybach in 1893
an improved belt drive system
This is probably the same internal-combustion engine referred to by the American author and historianHenry Brooks Adams, who describes the "Daimler motor" and its great speed from his visit to the1900 Paris Exposition in his autobiography.[23]
Daimler and Maybach continued to work together. They built a four-cylinder engine with Maybach' spray nozzle carburetor. It was in the first organized automobile race, the "Paris to Rouen" and defeated all the entries from DMG.Frederick Simms, German-born long-time friend of Gottlieb Daimler insisted that Daimler be brought back into the company[24] making it a condition of his payment of £17,500 for the transfer of his Daimler licenses to the BritishDaimler Company which would stabilize the corporation's finances, that Daimler, now aged sixty, should return to DMG.[citation needed] Gottlieb Daimler received 200,000 goldmarks in shares, plus a 100,000 bonus. Simms received the right to use the name "Daimler" as his brand name for Daimler Company products.[citation needed] In 1895, the year DMG assembled its 1,000th engine, Maybach returned asGeneral Inspector, receiving 30,000 shares.[citation needed]
During this period, they agreed to licenses to build Daimler engines around the world, which included:
Daimler had developed the first liquid petroleum vehicle in 1885 andKarl Benz had developed the first purpose-built automobile using a 2 cycle engine of his own design a few months later. Daimler never met Karl Benz during the period of invention. In 1896 Daimler (DMG) suedBenz & Cie for violating his 1883 patent on hot tube ignition. Daimler won and Benz had to pay royalties to DMG. Daimler did not meet Karl Benz while they were in court in Mannheim. Later at the founding of the Central European Motor Car Association Daimler and Benz still did not speak to each other.
Years after Daimler died, the two companies did cooperate in many ways. After many years of cooperation, on 28 June 1926 representatives of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) andBenz & Cie signed the agreement for the merger of the two oldest automobile manufacturers in the world. The resulting new company was namedDaimler-Benz AG.[30]
Gottlieb Daimler's motto wasDas Beste oder nichts ("The best or nothing at all"; "Nothing but the best").[31]Mercedes-Benz adopted this motto as their slogan in 2010.
Car and car engine designers, chronologically by first vehicle/engine built
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725–1804), French inventor of the world's first automobile, a 1769–1770 steam-fuelled vehicle
Étienne Lenoir (1822–1900), developer of the first atmospheric gaseous fueled internal combustion engine and automobile (1860–1863), pioneer of electroplating
Nicolaus Otto (1832–1891), developer of the first successful compressed charge gaseous fueled internal combustion engine (1860s–70s)
Siegfried Marcus (1831–1898), developed petrol-powered, internal combustion engine vehicles (1864? 1870? 1888)
Wilhelm Maybach (1846–1929), designed engines starting in the 1870s–80s; first motorbike (1885), second internal combustion car (1889)
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^abHendrickson, Kenneth E. III, ed. (2014)."Daimler, Gottlieb (1834–1900)".The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History. Vol. 3. London: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 236.ISBN978-0810888883. Retrieved7 July 2016.
^Adams, H. (1918)."Ch XXV".The Education of Henry Adams.
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Siebertz, Paul.Gottlieb Daimler: Ein Revolutionär der Technik. 4th ed., Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag, 1950.
Völker, Renate; Völker, Karl-Otto:Gottlieb Daimler: Ein bewegtes Leben. Silberburg-Verlag, Tübingen and Baden-Baden, 2013,ISBN978-3-8425-1230-6.
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