<\/p>\n
KRUPP <\/span>| <\/span>1919-21 <\/span>| <\/span>Germany <\/span>:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n This was a brief civilian sideline by one of Germany’s largest industrial concerns rather than a true entry into motorcycle building. As the largest German arms manufacturer, Friedrich Krupp AG of Essen switched capacity to civilian products after the First World War, and the Krupp Motorläufer that resulted was the first German motor scooter. In 1919 Krupp built that first German scooter, a front-wheel-drive design made under licence from the American Autoped. The machine should be described as a scooter rather than a motorcycle, which is the one wording in your draft worth tightening.<\/p>\n The design Krupp licensed was itself a pioneering one. The Autoped was among the very first attempts at a viable motor scooter, built by the Autoped Company of Long Island, New York, first shown at the New York Auto Show in January 1914 and in production from 1916, driving its front wheel through a multi-plate clutch, and once American production had effectively ended the design rights were sold to several European makers, one of them Friedrich Krupp of Essen. Another licensed version of the Autoped was built by Imperial Motor Industries in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n Krupp reworked the American machine in several ways and gave it the engine your draft describes. The specification was a four-stroke single-cylinder engine of 191cc, or 198cc by other accounts, with a top speed of 35 kilometres per hour and a weight just under 60 kilograms. The 191cc engine sat next to the front wheel with bore and stroke of 60 by 70 millimetres and produced 1.75 horsepower at 2,600 rpm, the spark came from a flywheel magneto, the inlet valve was not mechanically operated but worked on the atmospheric principle, and the steering column doubled as the oil tank holding 600cc of lubricant. Where the original Autoped could only be ridden standing up, the Krupp version added a saddle, and the original tube frame gave way to a pressed-steel construction. The controls were unusual even by the standards of the day. Pushing the handlebar forward engaged the engine with the front wheel and turning the throttle accelerated the scooter, while pulling the handlebar back towards the rider disengaged the engine and applied the brake.<\/p>\n Commercially it went nowhere. The price in 1920 was 4,500 marks, roughly three and a half months of an average worker’s pay. In Tragatsch’s summary these Autoped-like Motorläufer scooters carried 185cc and 198cc engines mounted outside the small front wheel, scooter production was not a good proposition at the time, and even the financially strong Krupp group was not in the trade for long, which in its case meant only about three years from 1919 to 1921.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KRUPP\u00a0 |\u00a0 1919-21\u00a0 |\u00a0 Germany\u00a0 : This was a brief civilian sideline by one of Germany’s largest industrial concerns rather than a true entry into motorcycle building. As the largest German arms manufacturer, Friedrich Krupp AG of Essen switched<\/p>\n