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| The Science Museum print from 1818, depicting a German 'Vélocipédraisiavaporianna' |
While researching the history of early motorcycle advertising (subject of an upcoming article in the French
Café Racers magazine), I ran across this 1818 sketch of a powered two-wheeler in the
London Science Museum, the first such depiction of a proto-motorcycle I've come across. Called, cheekily, the 'Velocipedraisiavaporianna', the pictured machine is a conjunction of the world's first steerable two-wheeler, the '
Laufsmachine' (or
'Draisine' in France), and a small steam engine with a small army of stokers and fuel-carriers following behind. Parsing the title, a 'Velocipede/Draisia' meets the 'vaporianna', or steam engine. If the 1818 attribution of this French print is correct, this vehicle was remarkably conceived only a year after the two-wheeler was invented, in a world with no electronic media. A close look reveals two pipes with shut-off valves leading from the large boiler box, one to each wheel.
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| The steam petcocks and pipes are clear, as is the implication of a hub-drive steam turbine... |
While the wheels are insufficiently detailed, steam leading to the wheel hubs would imply a pair of small turbines in the hubs...which would not have sufficient torque to move a heavy machine from a standstill, but would give a useful boost once moving, perhaps even enough to propel the machine without assistance. The principles of steam boilers and turbines were well known by 1818, and the first powered vehicle,
Cugnot's steam tricycle, had been demonstrated 60 years earlier.
The idea is clear; an engine could power two wheels, and even if this sketch is notional, the concept of the motorcycle was born.
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| An 1820 version of the Laufmaschine, with steerable front wheel |
Karl Drais invented his '
Laufmaschine' (running machine) in
Mannheim, Germany, in 1817, and word (plus copies) of his invention spread rapidly, with the new machine called the '
Draisine' in France, the
'Velocipede' in England, and the '
Dandy Horse' (likely due to 'riders' being the well-heeled sort; new technology is always expensive...). Drais may have been inspired to refine a 'horse substitute' as a result of a serious famine in Europe in 1816, the
'Year Without a Summer', in which disastrous climatic changes from the largest volcanic eruption in 1300 years, of
Mount Tambora in Indonesia, spelled doom for expendable livestock, which included horses. Necessity is the mother of invention, and Europe's hunger planted the root stock of all two-wheelers to come.
Hats off to Karl; we're nearing the 200th birthday of his invention.
