Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... Ill MOTOR CYCLING AT THE BEGINNING OF the various forms of motor vehicles made in the very earliest days, I suppose none were more complete or perfect, as carrying out the ideas of their makers, than motor tricycles. One would have thought the first step in adapting a motor to a cycle would have been in the direction of a motor bicycle, it being the more popular type of machine. Several inventors did give their attention to this form of machine, and my old friend, H. O. Duncan, endeavoured with Monsieur Suberbie to make a success of manufacturing the Wolff-Muller motor bicycle in France; but it was of such a crude and clumsy design that their efforts were foredoomed to failure. It was in addition an exceedingly heavy machine, and only an expert gymnast could possibly ride it at all. I myself suffered a number of spills in endeavouring to master the peculiarities of a machine of this type. At the same time a cycle seemed to lend itself to the adaptation of a motor, and it is interesting to know that Herr Daimler himself, in his experiments, first succeeded in adapting a motor to a little quadricycle before he had reached the stage of working out its possibilities when applied to a larger vehicle. The successful form of motor cycle was, however, undoubtedly the motor tricycle, and I attribute its success in a large degree to the fact that the well-known firm of Messrs. De Dion-Bouton took up its manufacture, and, like everything else emanating from that firm, the machines they turned out were both successful and practical. The Count de Dion had previously spent much money and conducted many experiments in an attempt to make a motor tricycle propelled by steam, and when the petrol motor became an accomplished possibility, he, with the aid...