Millet (motorcycle)
The Millet from 1892 was the first motorcycle with rotary engine .
Development and technology
The French inventor Felix Theodore Millet had in 1889 a patent on a motorcycle with five-cylinder - radial engine get in front. The first test run took place in 1892, but with the rotary motor in the rear wheel. In 1894, the manufacturer Alexandre Darracq took over the professional production of the motorcycle. In 1895 the motorcycle participated unsuccessfully in the Paris – Bordeaux – Paris race , after which Darracq stopped production.
The five cylinders were mounted radially in the rear wheel, the connecting rods attacked the fixed crank of the hollow rear axle. The rear fender served as a gas tank, the mixing tank of the surface carburetor with air filter was located between the wheels. It was ignited with an electrical detonator - a combination of Bunsen element and induction coil. Millet used rotating handlebar grips for the first time. It started with a pedal crank that could move the motorcycle even after the engine failed. The maximum power specified was 1.2 HP , and the continuous power 0.75 HP at a speed of 180 min −1 . With the continuous power the motorcycle should have reached a speed of 35 km / h, with "forced drive" it should have been possible to drive the motorcycle through a distance of 1,000 m in 65 seconds.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Juraj Porazik: Motorbikes from the years 1885 to 1940. Slovart Verlag, 1983. ISBN 978-3768402408 , p. 48
- ^ Cyril Posthumus and Dave Richmond: Motorcycles Yesterday and Today. Munich 1978, ISBN 3-453-52080-7 , p. 11
- ↑ a b bicycles. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 299, 1896, pp. 172-179.
