1885 Daimler Riding Car

(from DaimlerChrysler Press Release)  In 1883, it was Gottlieb Daimler who breathed life into the first lightweight, high-speed petrol engine working together with his close colleague and friend Wilhelm Maybach in what later became the famous 'Gartenhaus' (summer house) in Cannstatt near Stuttgart.

In an epoch-making first step they transformed an age-old vision into reality. The universal four-stroke power source – registered with the patent office in April 1885, and featuring key detail inventions such as hot tube ignition and float-type carburettor – was ready for fitting in coaches, railway carriages, boats, ships and the aeroplane which had also just been born, for driving pumps and electric power generators. Its breathtaking development was about to take off, on land, on water and in the air, just as Gottlieb Daimler had always wanted it and as symbolised by the three points of the Mercedes star adopted later.

"Reitrad": The world's first motorcycle

Daimler first fitted the engine in a two-wheeler, a highly cost-efficient test object. Daimler's younger son, Adolf, undertook the first public test-ride on 10°November 1885 with this the world's first-ever motorcycle, the "Reitrad" (riding car) registered with the patent office on 29 August 1885, along the three kilometre stretch of road from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim.