FEATURE
Gottlieb Daimler (far left) puts his new invention, the petrol-engined truck, on show in Paris in 1898. This five-tonner is the second evolution of the Daimler truck
) k c u r t d l o ( l a t n A sentime
journey
AIMLER TRUCK HAS SENT A CURRENT MODEL Mercedes-Benz Actros from Germany to England….on a sentimental journey. On board the Actros were two historic trucks – the first an accurate replica of the world’s first motorised truck, built by Gottfried Daimler and launched on August 18, 1896. Exactly 125 years later the Actros arrived in London from Stuttgart – ready for a British roadshow marking its anniversary. As Daimler Truck pointed it, it also just happened to be the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Actros model itself. So, a double celebration. No…a triple: The other historic truck on board the Actros on its trip to London – also for the roadshow – was an original 1898 Daimler. Back in the day (ie 123 years ago!), this was a notable evolution in the development of the truck. Gottlieb Daimler’s first truck, from 1896, was (unashamedly and unsurprisingly) based on a horse-drawn carriage – minus the drawbar and fitted with a four-horsepower, two-cylinder Phoenix engine. It was sold by Daimler to British Motor Syndicate, an automobile company in London. The rear-mounted 1.06-litre engine, originating from a car, was
linked to the rear axle by a belt. The engine had to be mounted on springs to avoid it being shaken up. As Daimler Truck explains: “The vehicle rolled on hard iron wheels, after all.” It says one of Herr Daimler’s greatest talents “was finding new areas of application for his engine. He invented the motorcycle, then went to the motorised trolley car, a motorised firefighting hose and then, almost inevitably, to the truck…” Daimler steered the leaf-sprung front axle via a chain: The driver sat up front on the driving seat – as you would on a horse-drawn carriage. The fuel consumption was approximately six litres of petrol per 100 kilometres. In the terminology of the day, that was “0.4 kilogrammes per horsepower and hour”. Adds Daimler Truck: “It is noteworthy that the first truck already anticipated.....the planetary axles that are still common today in construction vehicles: Because the belt drive sent the power from the engine to a shaft fitted transversely to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle – both ends of which were fitted with a pinion. Each tooth of this pinion meshed with the internal teeth of a ring gear which was firmly connected with the wheel to be driven.” The genuine 1898 Daimler on that recent trip to the United Truck & Driver | 67
