by 1 Cylivers
World's First Motorcycle (1885): Daimler's "riding car"
The First Motorcycle was designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad Cannstatt (Stuttgart) in 1885.
It was essentially a motorised bicycle, although the inventors called their invention the Reitwagen ("riding car"). It was also the first petroleum-powered vehicle.
It was designed as an expedient test-bed for their new engine, rather than a true prototype vehicle.
However, if a two-wheeled vehicle with steam propulsion is considered a motorcycle, then the first one may have been American.
One such machine was demonstrated at fairs and circuses in the eastern U.S. in 1867, built by Sylvester Howard Roper of Roxbury, Massachusetts.
