Minerva (motorcycle brand)
Minerva was a Belgian motorcycle brand. The Minerva Company made bicycles, engines, motorcycles and eventually automobiles over time.
The Belgian Sylvain de Jong (1868–1928) founded the Minerva bicycle factory in Antwerp in 1897 . When the engineers Hermann Lüthi and Ernest Zürcher provided him with a 211 cm³ engine they had developed in 1900 , the three of them jointly developed a bicycle that could be converted into a motorcycle with the help of the engine .
For this purpose, the engine was installed in front of the front frame tube. The carburetor worked through a touchpad. A twisted, round leather straps transferred the movement of the motor pulley to another pulley of larger diameter, which was attached to the rear wheel spokes of the bicycle. This arrangement became known as the Minerva Position. Below the upper frame tube was a tank made of tinplate, which enclosed a housing in which the accumulator for the ignition by the ignition coil was housed.
The first engine achieved considerable success, so it was followed by a second, technically improved model. This had a displacement of 293 cm³ and mechanically controlled valves . At the end of the clumsy exhaust pipe was a silencer that looked like a jam jar.
This improved engine was used by 75 European companies. Among other things, the Triumph company entered motorcycle racing with this model in 1902 . Later customers could choose between engines with 262, 345 and 423 cc.
In 1903 Minerva began to be interested in motorcycle races and presented a factory model with a vertically built-in 3.5 HP engine, without pedals and with a small tank. In 1904 the company founded a new factory in Bechem near Antwerp, where automobiles were also to be produced under the Minerva brand .
Meanwhile, many former customers had started making their own engines or were buying from other companies. The Belgian company decided to counter with its own complete motorcycles. The result was a large machine with a V two-stroke engine and 7 hp. In 1907 Minerva produced 1200 motorcycles with engines rated at 2.7, 3.5 and 4.5 hp. The suspension fork had previously replaced the reinforced rigid frame. In addition, an unusual motor with 2.75 hp was produced, in which the magnet was driven by push rods and eccentrics . Before 1910, Minerva ceased motorcycle production and concentrated entirely on automobiles.