Daimler and Maybach initially installed the engine in a wooden two-wheeler, which served as the first test vehicle and simultaneously entered the history books as the world’s first motorcycle. Power was transmitted from the engine belt pulley via a drive belt to the rear wheels. Two speeds were possible – 6 or 12 km/h – depending on the belt pulley selected. In November that same year Gottlieb Daimler’s son Adolf had no problem completing the three-kilometre stretch from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim aboard this riding car – making it proof on wheels that this combustion engine could be used to power a road vehicle controlled by a human being.
During the course of 1886 an engine was mounted into a carriage frame – resulting in Daimler’s fist automobile and the world’s first four-wheeled motorised vehicle with petrol drive. From a displacement of 462 cm³, the improved and now air-cooled engine developed 0.81 kW at 650/min and had a maximum engine speed of 900/min. In addition, it was even lighter than the previous unit – weighing in at just 40 kilograms. The carriage involved was a dark blue “Americain” with red trim, black leather seats and a “lantern with permit”, as was written in the delivery note from the Stuttgart carriage-builders Wimpf & Son dated summer 1886. The engine was mounted centrally ahead of the rear seat bench. In 1887 it was equipped with a water-cooled system.
In addition to the engine, what was radically new about this vehicle was the power transmission. Depending on the ratio selected, the engine’s belt pulley drove pulleys of varying sizes on a throughdrive countershaft. Via sprockets on either side, these then drove the toothed gears mounted on the rear wheels. Instead of a differential a friction clutch was fitted on either side of the throughdrive countershaft.
This vehicle, known as the “motor carriage”, attained a remarkable 16 kilometres per hour with its “grandfather clock” engine. And yet the excursions with the motor carriage were not publicly documented until the summer of 1888. What is interesting is that Daimler applied for a driving permit on 17 July 1888 for a “light four-seater chaise with a small engine”. And with that, another innovation had been born – the world’s first driving licence.
Daimler finally applied for a patent for his “machine to drive the propeller shaft of a ship by either gas or petroleum-powered engine” on 9 October 1886 and found suitable occasions subsequently on which to present his boats equipped with this drive system. The greatest interest in this new source of propulsion was shown in Hamburg, where large numbers of marine engines were ordered from Daimler. With that, the triumphal march of the high-speed engine for use on water was on its way – and it would not be long before it also conquered the land.