125 years ago, automobile pioneer and company founder Gottlieb Daimler died in Cannstatt on March 6, 1900 at the age of just 65.
A new drive for mobility on land, at sea and in the air: as a visionary, engineer and company founder, Gottlieb Daimler was firmly convinced that innovative technology could change people's lives for the better.
From gunsmith to automotive pioneer
Gottlieb Daimler was born on March 17, 1834 in Schorndorf to a family of bakers and trained as a gunsmith after leaving school. The talented young craftsman came to the attention of Ferdinand Steinbeis, the influential promoter of industrialization in Württemberg. He financed Daimler's studies and stays abroad with scholarships. The young man seized the opportunities with a great thirst for action, became an engineer and turned his innovative ideas into new products.
After holding several management positions in the mechanical engineering industry, Gottlieb Daimler settled in Cannstatt in 1882 and bought a villa in Taubenheimstrasse. He had a brick extension added to the greenhouse in the large garden to create a workshop - it became the nucleus of his own start-up company with the aim of "disruption" in the modern sense of the word. Here, together with his long-time companion and colleague Wilhelm Maybach, he developed the high-speed four-stroke engine as a universal drive. The single-cylinder unit replaces traditional forms of propulsion. It is used in road and rail vehicles, boats and airships, among other things. Compact and powerful, the engine enables completely new mobility.
The first motorcycle in history returns to the road
In 1885, Daimler and Maybach reach a milestone: with the two-wheeled riding carriage, they test the high-speed four-stroke internal combustion engine in public. It is the first road vehicle in the world with this drive and also the first motorcycle in history. Daimler applies for a patent for the invention (DRP 36423 dated August 29, 1885).
To mark the "140 Years of the Riding Car" anniversary, Mercedes-Benz Classic is allowing an authentic replica of the motorcycle with a wooden frame and Daimler single-cylinder engine to be ridden: at the open-brand classic meeting Classics & Coffee at the Mercedes-Benz Museum on August 31, 2025 for the "Motorcycles" theme special.
Daimler's vision becomes reality
After the horse-drawn carriage, things go from strength to strength: mid-1886 sees the premiere of the Daimler motorized carriage, the first four-wheeled automobile in history. Shortly before that, in January, Carl Benz patents his three-wheeled motor car. The two automobile pioneers Benz and Daimler work independently of each other and without meeting in person. Also in 1886, Gottlieb Daimler presented his motorboat, followed in 1888 by the world's first powered flight of Dr. Friedrich Hermann Wölfert's airship with a Daimler engine. Gottlieb Daimler's vision of mobility on land, at sea and in the air had thus become reality.
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) was founded in 1890. It is one of the predecessor companies of today's Mercedes-Benz Group. In 1893, the cosmopolitan Gottlieb Daimler presented a modified version of the "steel-wheeled car" at the World's Fair in Chicago, the first publicly presented, operational automobile in North America. In the years that followed, he continued to promote the use of his invention and thus individual mobility in France and England, for example - and of course in Germany. Time and again, Daimler had to overcome resistance - from the early automobile skepticism in Germany to the tough disputes with the shareholders of DMG. Ultimately, he prevailed with his visionary spirit. But these challenges took their toll on Daimler's health. From the 1880s onwards, he suffered from heart problems, from which the automotive pioneer died relatively young.
Memorials
His birthplace in Schorndorf and the Daimler Garden House in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt commemorate the life and work of Gottlieb Daimler.
