DMG 1890 - 1915

Bok utgitt i forbindelse med 25-års jubileet til Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft

Her er den engelske teksten maskinoversatt fra Tysk.

Kilde: Zum 25Jährigen Bestehen der Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft : - 1915 - National Library of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic - No Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Only.

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ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF DAIMLER MOTORS COMPANY UNTERTÜRKHEIM NOVEMBER 28, 1915

Gotlieb Daimler

1. THE INVENTION OF THE DAIMLER ENGINE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT UNTIL THE FOUNDATION OF THE DAIMLER MOTORS COMPANY IN 1890

— EARLY MORNING at the Porte Maillot, near Paris. The street teemed with people. Shouts and laughter filled the air, and the words of "Le Petit Journal" were shouted out in hoarse roars. Flocks of white doves fluttered here and there, their handkerchiefs animated by waving hands. Paris, as it gathered at the Auteuil racetrack and in the stalls of the Opéra Garnier, and the other Paris that lived in Montmartre, had converged here, on the road leading to Rouen; along with over a hundred vehicles of all kinds: gasoline-powered cars, steam cars, electric cars, hydromobiles, cars with gas and compressed air engines, and those powered by electro-pneumatics. At the front, among the vehicles, amidst the hustle and bustle of officials, stood the unmistakable figure of the nearly 60-year-old Gottlieb Daimler.. — —

This was the start of the first international automobile race, organized by "Le Petit Journal" twenty-one years ago in July 1894. The event's success was significant in many respects. The system triumphed; a Daimler car easily won the Paris-Rouen-Paris race against all other vehicles, regardless of their origin. This marked the beginning of an almost uninterrupted sporting career, interrupted only by the war. At the time, however, it was about more than just victory; it was about the confirmation of the principle, the trial by fire of the idea. The Daimler car competed against twenty different systems, crossed the finish line first, and gave its inventor, for the first time, tangible certainty that he had been on the right track from the very beginning. Basically, Daimler didn't need the assurance because he had always been convinced of the potential for development of the gasoline engine. But now it had been proven to the whole world.

The work began to bear fruit.

Back when Gottlieb Daimler set about building the first internal combustion engine—it was in 1882 in Cannstatt—it took considerable inventive courage to tackle the problem. Almost every inventor has a more or less pre-existing field before them; almost everyone stands on the shoulders of previous inventors. Daimler found the area he entered virtually untouched; apart from the very earliest experiments (dating back to 1807), only Lenoir's experiments (1860) were relevant to him. The designs of the ingenious Siegfried Markus in Vienna cannot be considered, because their development coincided with Daimler's experiments. Neither Lenoir nor Markus had come close to a solution for practical application. Only Daimler had the good fortune to find the right path, the one that was bound to lead to success. But more than just luck was needed to reach the goal: only a man of will and energy could see the journey through to the end and win the prize of immortality. Daimler was a man of action in the truest sense. He understood his time and its needs, and so he dedicated all his energy to meeting the enormous demands of technology in practical transportation. His education enabled him to bring the work to a successful conclusion.

Gottlieb Daimler was born on March 17, 1834, in Schorndorf, Württemberg. Overcoming numerous difficulties, he had worked his way up from the ground up, so to speak, and was first employed—from 1853 to 1856—at the Grafenstaden machine tool factory. Els. was practically active. His theoretical studies, which he undertook at the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart from 1857 to 1859, were followed by extensive practical training in England (1861 to 1863). Upon returning to Germany, he initially worked in Geislingen and Reutlingen before joining the Karlsruhe Machine Works. The pivotal point in his life was likely his time with the newly founded Deutz Gas Engine Factory (Langen & Otto). For ten years, from 1872 to 1882, he served as the technical director of this company, which he established and brought to international renown.

The very first preliminary work on the automobile engine dates back to the early 1880s. This involved refining Otto's atmospheric gas engine, whose particular advantage lay in the fact that it was the first to take compression into account. These successful experiments made the gas engine the precursor to the automobile engine. Daimler's later employee, Wilhelm Maybach (born February 9, 1846, in Heilbronn), built a small gas engine at that time, based on Daimler's specifications, which incorporated new design principles. Unlike previous engines, ignition in this engine was not achieved by a slide valve; instead, the designer incorporated an opening in the cylinder through which gas flowed, igniting at a flame and driving the piston downwards. This represented a significant simplification and a major step forward, because the controlled ignition placed a limit on the previously known internal combustion engines with regard to the conversion of road vehicles.