On 17 March 1834, Gottlieb Daimler was born in Schorndorf, Germany, the man who, together with Karl Benz, in addition to being immortalized in the name of the famous German car manufacturer, was the 'father' of the automobile.
With its combustion engine, Daimler laid the foundations for the development of the automotive industry throughout the world.
The design and construction of the first two-stroke combustion engine took place between 1877 and 1879 by Karl Benz who created it for his industrial activity (he produced stationary engines).
In 1883 Daimler perfected the Benz models by patenting what, two years later, would become the 'closed vertical Daimler engine' suitable for vehicles.
Mounted on a saddle vehicle - a kind of large tricycle, ancestor of today's motorcycle - the Daimler engine was further improved between 1885 and 1886 by increasing its power and introducing battery ignition.
This is how, on January 28, 1886, Benz was able to patent his three-wheeled motor vehicle, the first fully functional automobile in the world.
The first public run took place on 3 July of that year thanks to a vertical cylinder engine designed by Daimler.
Between 1886 and 1888, Daimler tested his new engine in boats, airplanes, fire engines and rail vehicles, kickstarting the automobile race that occurred throughout Europe in the early twentieth century.
Daimler's life is the classic one of the great industrial pioneers of the twentieth century: the son of a baker from the Swabian village of Schondorf, Daimler perfected his passion for machine building by studying at the Stuttgart Polytechnic and with long stays in France and Great Britain.
The turning point in his career was his appointment as technical director of the Deutz gas engine factory of which he had become the co-owner together with the inventor of the cyclo-eight engine, Nikolaus August Otto.
Daimler, however, left Deutz when the factory management said they were skeptical about his plan to create a small, high-performance engine instead of heavy, low-revving ones suitable only for stationary use.
Daimler thus settled in Cannstatt, now a hamlet of Stuttgart, where in 1882, together with Wilhelm Maybach, he set to work to realize his projects.
The following year Daimler obtained the patent for compression in a boiling cylinder with incandescent tube ignition which would serve as the basis for his combustion engine.
In those years, Daimler and Maybach also developed the curved cam control of the exhaust valve, the basis for a higher number of engine revolutions.
The first Daimler motor car saw the light of day in November 1885 in the park of its inventor's home.
It was a saddle car,
a kind of wooden motorcycle with side support wheels.
This project was not followed up.
A year later, however, the first four-wheeled Daimlera car was produced, a 'horseless and shaftless carriage'.
Almost at the same time, in Mannheim, the gas engine car developed based on a Benz design was born.
In 1888, mobility takes a further step forward thanks to the numerous innovations that both bring to the high-speed combustion engine.
Daimler and Benz face two issues: one relating to new applications of the engine, the other concerns the fact that the reliability of the engine as a powertrain for the new type of car must be demonstrated to the general public.
Gottlieb Daimler is particularly interested in possible new applications for the combustion engine developed with Wilhelm Maybach.
After the first motorcycle in the world, the 'Reitwagen' of 1885, and the motor carriage of 1886, numerous innovative prototypes were created in 1888.
Daimler and Benz thus became, together, the fathers of the modern automobile.
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