Auch in Deutsch verfügbar!

The early ancestors of the automobile engine.

1867. The first ever gold medal for a two-stroke engine. With Nikolaus Otto's first atmospheric engine, Otto and his engineer Eugen Langen carried off the gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867. Although this economical two-stroke engine running on coal gas was an excellent power source for stationary equipment, it was much too heavy to be fitted in a vehicle.

1872. The Deutz gas engine factory in Cologne. In 1872, Nikolaus Otto and Eugen Langen founded the Deutz gas engine factory in Cologne. Its technical director was a certain Gottlieb Daimler, who a short time later appointed an old friend and collaborator, Wilhelm Maybach, as his chief designer.

1876. The four-stroke petrol engine. By spring 1876, Otto's four-stroke engine was up and running. But it was another nine years before an engine of this type, modified by Daimler, was ready to be fitted in a vehicle.