German Two-Wheel Museum
German Two-Wheel Museum
SLONIGER
NECKARSULM IS A TOWN more or less in the center of Germany. Roughly in the middle of Neckarsulm — just follow the blue signs — there is a three-story building called the Deutsches Zweirad Museum, or German two-wheel museum, with a guest book that covers our favorite mode of fun and transport from way back then to the days of the Honda racing team. If the visitors have been numerous, the exhibits are equal to them with so many push bikes, high-wheelers, historic motorcycles and racing machines you are likely to miss some gems on a hurried trip.
It’s really an embarrassment of riches, particularly in the old motorcycle section where the rows look like the fans’ parking lot at an international race meeting — if all the fans could pick their favorites through history. Although the museum sits only a few blocks from the NSU factory it is actually world-wide and independent with many exhibits that have no connection with the local motorcycle builders.
Take the American Ner-A-Car, for a start. The uncharitable might claim this one has very little connection with motorcycles at all despite its two wheels, and apparently its U.S. builders had similar ideas. Say the name fast and you’ll get what they were after: nearly a car, with boxed-in essentials, fat tires and a sort of over-grown scooter appearance. It didn’t outlive the Twenties.
Nor did the Munich-built Megola which was probably at least as stable. Imagine your motorcycle with front wheel drive and a five cylinder rotary engine spinning merrily around inside the powered front wheel at that. The handling in downhill bends must have been something for Halloween.
Along more prophetic lines, the first qualified success must be credited to Gottlieb Daimler’s pre-automobile wooden twowheeler using his (and the world’s) first gasoline prime mover in 1885. Of course the original was destroyed by fire but this is a perfect copy of a bike Daimler reportedly left a good deal faster than h*» had mounted on the first spin. It seems the seat got exceedingly warm.
Debut machinery is scattered all through the museum, from the early nineteenth century push bikes right up to the first production motorcycle, built by WolfMueller in Munich in 1894. This watercooled job carried its oil in the frame tubes, while the rider carried its fuel in bottles in a knapsack — stock up at any handy pharmacy. The valves were controlled by long, long püshrods activated by eccentrics on the rear wheel and rubber bands you adjusted in full flight replaced the flywheel in returning the piston to tdc. The reported top speed was 25 mph though the makers were said to have claimed 35 without finding anybody brave enough to prove their point.
The Wolf-Mueller firm got into the act so early they even patented the word “motorrad” or motorcycle, preventing the likes of NSU, an “upstart” from the 1900 era, from calling their first efforts by that name.
Naturally enough the NSU exhibits, from those earliest days on through such beauties as the Baum “flying lawnchair” which took a slew of small-bore bike records with its designer-driver nearly flat on his back; predominate but the top floor has a wider variety than one firm could possibly have offered.
The racing section is a mass of contrasts. At one point you can see a 50cc Victoria with a bore about the size of a shot glass which traveled some 50 mph in 1951 to set a class record — later bested by the Baum streamliner. The Victoria sits right next to Schorsch Maier’s 500cc BMW, the famous supercharged racing twin which made his name a track legend to German fans. Both occupy the same rank with full “dolphin” streamliners and the half-faired bikes which came in when the eggs were banned. Every one has a victory string.
Then there are the models which didn’t
race but still gave a helping hand to their pedal-powered brothers. One such was the svelte 2.4 liter Anzani-engined twin with belt drive which was rigged as a wind-cheating “tow” in France for a cyclist taking aim on the bicycle speed record. These days they use a Grand Prix car for the same purpose.
I’ve barely touched the bikes right inside the doors, of course. Any motorcycle fan who finds himself in Germany can do better in a couple of hours, with the aid of Josef Muth, the custodian and walking file of obscure two-wheel lore. Between stints of furnishing buried facts to fans around the world he is happy to show off one of the unique sidelights in our modern world. •
