German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist
1834 CE
to 1900 CE
Gottlieb Daimler (March 17, 1834 – March 6, 1900) is an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf (Kingdom of Württemberg, a federal state of the German Confederation), in what is now Germany.
He is a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development.
He invents the high-speed petrol engine and the first four-wheel automobile.
Daimler and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm Maybach are two inventors whose goal is to create small, high-speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device.
In 1885, they design a precursor of the modern petrol (gasoline) engine which they subsequently fit to a two-wheeler, the first internal combustion motorcycle and, in the next year, to a stagecoach, and a boat.
Daimler baptizes it the Grandfather Clock engine (Standuhr) because of its resemblance to an old pendulum clock.
In 1890, they found Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG, in English—Daimler Motors Corporation).
They sell their first automobile in 1892.
Daimler falls ill and takes a break from the business.
Upon his return, he experiences difficulty with the other stockholders that leda to his resignation in 1893.
This is reversed in 1894.
Maybach resigns at the same time, and also returns.
In 1900, Daimler dies; Wilhelm Maybach quits DMG in 1907.
In 1924, the DMG management signs a long term co-operation agreement with Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., and in 1926 the two companies merg to become Daimler-Benz AG, which is now part of Daimler AG.
