Gottlieb Daimler

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Gottlieb Daimler
Cannstatt, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire
NationalityGerman
Occupation(s)Engineer, industrialist, automotive pioneer
Known forDaimler Motoren Gesellschaft (Daimler Motors Corporation, DMG)

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (German:

automobile
development. He invented the high-speed liquid petroleum-fueled engine.

Daimler and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm 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 be throttled, 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 first

Petroleum Reitwagen (Riding Car) and, in the next year, to a coach
, 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 company Daimler 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]

Early life and education (1834–1862)

Daimler's birthplace in Schorndorf, now a small museum

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was the son of a baker named Johannes Däumler (Daimler) and his wife Frederika, from the town of

Lateinschule
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 of engraved double-barreled pistols.[7] The same year, at eighteen, Daimler decided to take up mechanical engineering, abandoning gunsmithing,[7] and left his hometown.

Daimler enrolled at Stuttgart's School for Advanced Training in the Industrial Arts, under the tutelage of

Grafenstaden, so-called because its manager, Friedrich Messmer, had been an instructor at the University of Karlsruhe.[7] Daimler performed well, and when Rollé und Schwilque began making railway locomotives in 1856, Daimler, then 22, was named foreman.[7]

Instead of staying, Daimler took two years at Stuttgart'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 with

Beyer, Peacock & Company, Manchester, whose partner Beyer was from Saxony.[9] While in London, he visited the 1862 International Exhibition, where one of the exhibits was a steam carriage.[7] These carriages did not evidently inspire him, however, for his wish was to improve machine tools for metal and woodworking machinery.[7]

Career through 1882

Daimler went to work for Maschinenfabrik Daniel Straub,

Maschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe in July.[7]
: 482 

When in 1872 N.A. Otto and Cie

atmospheric 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 in Saint 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 

Otto four-stroke engine (1876)

In 1872 at age 38, Daimler and Maybach moved to work at the world's largest manufacturer of stationary engines at the time, the Deutz-AG-Gasmotorenfabrik in Cologne.[citation needed] It was half-owned by Nicolaus 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 charge

four-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 to Beau 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 112,000

Gold 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

At Cannstatt, 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 available petroleum fraction. The main distillates of petroleum at the time were lubricating oil, kerosene (burned as lamp fuel), and ligroin (petroleum naphtha 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 at pharmacies (chemist's) at the time", as described by antique car expert Michael Plag. "This is a combustible fuel called n-hexane."[15]

Dream engine (1883)

In late 1883, Daimler and Maybach patented the first of their engines fueled by

Bosch.[16]

Grandfather clock engine (1885)

The Reitwagen (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 the

Reitwagen, the first vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.[16]

It took considerable effort and experimentation, but eventually, the duo perfected a .5 

PS) vertical single, which was fitted in the Reitwagen, a purpose-built two-wheeler chassis with two spring-loaded stabilizers.[7]
: 483 

Daimler Motorcoach 1886
Daimler 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]
  • air cooling
  • large cast iron flywheel
  • surface carburetor[18]
  • hot tube ignition system (patent 28022)
  • cam operated exhaust valves, allowing high speed operation
  • 0.5 hp (370 W)[17]
  • 600 rpm running speed, beating previous engines, which typically ran at about 120 to 180 rpm[19]
  • weight of around 50 kg (110 lb)[17]
  • height of 76 cm (30 in)[17]

In 1885, they created a

"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 the

Untertürkheim
, reaching 12 kilometres per hour (7 mph).

First automobile (1886)

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 an

automobile using an integral design for a motorized vehicle with one of his own engines. He was granted a patent
for his motorwagen on 29 January 1886.

When this proved the engine capable of driving a vehicle, Daimler devised a 1.1 

belt 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 the MHPArena, 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 called Neckar after the river where it was tested. (patent DRP 39-367). This was the first motorboat 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 of Leipzig. 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 the 1889 Paris Exposition to show their achievements.

First Daimler-Maybach automobile built (1889)

Steel Wheel Automobile 1889
 · high speed four-stroke petrol engine
 · fuel vaporization
 · 2 cylinders V-configured
 · mushroom shaped valves
 · water-cooled
 · 4 speed toothed gearbox
 · pioneer axle-pivot steering system

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 the Stahlradwagen, 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, the Phönix engine, and the first motorcar sold (1890 to 1900)

Model of a DMG Lastwagen, 1896, first gasoline truck

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 from gunpowder maker Max Duttenhofer, industrialist, and banker Kilian von Steiner, and munitions manufacturer de: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 to

Karl Benz, and August 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's Deutz-AG.

In 1892, DMG finally sold its first automobile. DMG developed the high-speed inline-two Phönix, for which Maybach invented a spray carburettor.[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 to Florence, 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 in Chicago 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 historian

Henry Brooks Adams, who describes the "Daimler motor" and its great speed from his visit to the 1900 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.

General Inspector, receiving 30,000 shares.[citation needed
]

During this period, they agreed to licenses to build Daimler engines around the world, which included:

Daimler died in 1900, and in 1907 Maybach resigned from DMG.

Founding of Daimler-Benz

Daimler had developed the first liquid petroleum vehicle in 1885 and

Benz & 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) and

Daimler-Benz AG.[30]

Honours

Gottlieb Daimler was accepted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1978. Between 1993 and July 2008 Daimler had a stadium named after him in Stuttgart, Germany. The former Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion was the venue for six matches in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Gottlieb Daimler's motto was Das Beste oder nichts ("The best or nothing at all"; "Nothing but the best").[31] Mercedes-Benz adopted this motto as their slogan in 2010.

See also

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)

References

  1. ^ "Gottlieb Daimler". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-3939500278
    .
  3. ^ Carr, Sandra (20 January 2006), "Art That Roars!", Orlando Sentinel, p. 46, retrieved 11 February 2011
  4. ^ Forgey, Benjamin (5 July 1998), "Article: A Wheelie Big Show; 'Art of the Motorcycle' Speeds Down the Guggenheim's Spiral", The Washington Post, p. G1, retrieved 11 February 2011
  5. ^ Neale, Brian (25 October 1998), "Field Museum Turns Biker Garage For Art Of The Motorcycle Exhibit", Chicago Tribune, p. 1, retrieved 11 February 2011
  6. ^ "1834: Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler wird geboren" [1834: Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was born] (in German). Car Design Schacht. 16 February 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Wise, David Burgess (1974). Northey, Tom (ed.). Daimler: Founder of the Four-Wheeler. Vol. 5. London: Orbis Publishing. p. 481. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Press Kit: Mercedes-Benz in the UK. Stuttgart, 13 June 2007; Daimler Global Media
  9. ^ Ehland, Christoph ed. (2007) Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England. Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam
  10. ^ See WMF Group
  11. ^ "Deutz remembers its founder N.A. Otto". Deutz Press Release. 14 June 2012. Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  12. ^ Bellis, Mary (18 June 2018). "Biography of Nicolaus Otto and the Modern Engine". Thought Co. Archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  13. ^ Wikrent, Tony (27 June 2015). "Cool Spring Power Museum, June 2015: The first internal combustion engines". Real Economics. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  14. ^ Clark, John (10 August 2010). "Mercedes-Benz History: The Route to the Riding Car". Mercedes-Benz. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  15. ^ "125 Jahre Daimler Reitwagen – Hölzerner Feuerstuhl" [125 years Daimler riding car – Wooden Bottom]. SZ Magazin Newsletter. 6 August 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  16. ^
    ISBN 978-1469101040
    .
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georgano, G. N. (1990) Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886–1930. London: Grange-Universal, p. 13.
  18. ^ Abrams, Michael (April 2012), Gottlieb Daimler, American Society of Mechanical Engineers
  19. ^ "1883: the high-speed engine with hot-tube ignition system from Daimler".
  20. ^ "Daimler at a Glance". Daimler AG. 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  21. ISBN 978-0810888876
    .
  22. ^
    ISBN 978-0810888883
    . Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  23. ^ Adams, H. (1918). "Ch XXV". The Education of Henry Adams.
  24. ^ "Gottlieb Daimler". www.nndb.com.
  25. Daimler AG. Stuttgart. 26 September 2013. Archived from the original
    on 13 May 2016. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  26. The Music Trades. La Guardia and Wagner Archives, LaGuardia Community College
    . March 2004. p. 60. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  27. ^ Bindelglass, Evan (21 March 2014). "Parsing The Steinway Mansion's Rich Past & Uncertain Future". Curbed. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  28. ^ Barron, James (19 July 2003). "Today's Pianos Have Prelude In Yesterday's; Steinway Family Legacy Pervades Factory in Queens". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  29. ISBN 978-0-7391-8826-2
    . Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  30. ^ "Merger in the Year 1926: DMG and Benz & Cie. merge to become Daimler-Benz AG: Together for the best for 90 years". Daimler. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  31. OCLC 59017729
    .

Sources

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