the evolution of the harley-davidson motorcycle

NICOLAUS DIGNIFIED OTTO

The postmaster’s son and skilled businessman was active in his spare time as a mechanical engineer and founded in 1864 together with Eugen Langen, the first engine factory in the world. Under the umbrella of “Deutz gas engine factory” Nicolaus Dignified Otto developed a gas engine in 1876 with the four-stroke opinion, which provided the prototype for all subsequent combustion engines. 1884 Otto invented the electrical detonation of its gas engines. With this change, it became possible to also use liquid fuel to an alternative to the previously only used gas. The “petrol engine” meant the initial impetus for the development of the automobile and the rise of the related industry. Nicolaus Dignified Otto was born on 14 June 1832 in Holzhausen on the heath in the Taunus born.

His father was postmaster. With school, Otto did an apprenticeship as a merchant. He then worked as a clerk in Frankfurt / Main and Cologne. In addition to his professional activities, Mr. Otto was interested in technology early on. With 1860, the Luxembourg Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir had introduced the first practical gas engine to the public, in 1862, Otto started experimenting with four-stroke engines. 1864 Otto called a meeting with the engineer Carl Eugen Langen, the “NA Otto Cie.” the first engine factory in the world to life.

NICOLAUS DIGNIFIED OTTO

In 1869 she founded the “gas-engine manufacturer Deutz AG”. Lenoir’s invention developed on the basis of Otto and Langen a gas combustion engine that worked on the four-stroke opinion, and they 1867 World Exhibition in Paris open to the public. There he received an award as the engine consumed much less fuel than Lenoir’s model. Otto developed the invention continuously and in 1876 a four-stroke gas engine was built with superior density, which provided the prototype for all subsequent combustion engines and became known as “gasoline engine” in the automotive history.

In 1882 he was awarded by the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Würzburg an honorary doctorate. 1884 Otto laid before an electrical detonation system, with its gas engines could be started. This allowed the use of liquid fuels now as an alternative to gas. Nicolaus Otto died on 26 January 1891 in Cologne.

the evolution of the harley-davidson motorcycle

EVOLUTION OF MOTORCYCLES

steam velocipede built

A steam velocipede built by inventor Sylvester H. Roper in 1867 may be the earliest known motorcycle. The coal fired steam engine unit is part of a specially built chassis rather than an add-on and had no pedal crank. While Roper’s two-wheeled inventions never found commercial success, his innovations provided inspiration and direction for inventors in the gas-powered motorbike era at the turn of the century. A steam velocipede built by inventor Sylvester H. Roper was exhibited and demonstrated at New England fairs and circuses by 1869.

steam velocipede built

The motorcycle, built in 1884 by an Englishman named Edward Butler, looked pretty silly. It had three wheels, not two, and was really just a tricycle with a motor. Nevertheless, people were afraid of Butler’s motorcycle so afraid that they asked the government to pass laws against the new machine. One law said that there must always be three people on a motorcycle. Another said that a man with a red flag must run ahead of the motorcycle, waving the flag and yelling to warn people that a motorcycle was coming.

At about the same time, a German named Gottlieb Daimler invented another kind of motorcycle. Nicolaus Otto, who invented the Otto Cycle, had an assistant, Gottlieb Daimler. Daimler left Otto to develop his own engine. Gottlieb Daimler (who later teamed up with Karl Benz to form the Daimler-Benz Corporation) is often credited with building the first motorcycle in 1885, one wheel in the front and one in the back, although it had a smaller spring-loaded outrigger wheel on each side. It was constructed mostly of wood, with the wheels being of the iron-banded wooden-spooked wagon-type, definitely a "bone-crusher" chassis.

It was indeed powered by a single-cylinder Otto-cycle engine, and may have had a spray-type carburetor. (Daimler's assistant, Wilhelm Maybach was working on the invention of the spray carburetor at the time). Paul Daimler, Gottlieb’s young son, was the first to give his dad’s motorcycle a test drive. His daughter is also said to have taken it for a spin, but cracked it up into a tree.

He drove it with his engine instead of with a pedal arrangement. But there was a catch: Daimler's motorcycle had two small stabilizing wheels --like a kid's training bike. It was actually a four-wheeled vehicle. Daimler soon went on to build early automobiles. He left it to bicycle builders to develop the two-wheeled motorcycle. The first really successful production two-wheeler though, was the Hildebrand & Wolfmueller, patented in Munich in 1894. In 1897 a gasoline tricycle built by Louis S. Clarke of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is a remarkably modern-looking tricycle, converted to self-propulsion by the addition of a single-cylinder gasoline engine mounted just forward of the rear axle.

Oscar Hedstrom

In 1901, a bicycle racer Oscar Hedstrom designed a motorcycle for the Hendee Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, which later became the Indian Motorcycle Company. In 1903, 21-year old William S. Harley and 20-year old Arthur Davidson made available to the public the first production Harley-Davidson® motorcycle. The bike was built to be a racer, with a 3-1/8 inch bore and 3-1/2 inch stroke. The factory in which they worked was a 10 x 15-foot wooden shed with the words "Harley-Davidson Motor Company" crudely scrawled on the door. The only American motorcycle manufacturer still in existence from the early days is the Harley Davidson Motor Company, which celebrated its centennial in 2003.

EVOLUTION OF MOTORCYCLES