Buffalo, NY circa 1966

Today in motorcycle history, March 6, 1900

  Gottlieb Daimler dies.

 

  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 1885 they designed a precursor of the modern gasoline engine which they subsequently fitted to a two-wheel, wooden rigid frame ("Swingarms are for pussies!", Maybach would scream) which became known as the first internal combustion motorcycle (a version with a 10" over springer, drag bars, a king/queen seat and flame paint job was in the works for spring, 1889) and, in 1886, they attempted to fit their engine to a stagecoach, and then a boat.