Legends in Chrome and Steel

So it only made sense that the first motorcycles, built in the years between 1900 and World War I, were essentially motorized bicycles. The most important Nuremberg makers of the day were Victoria, Hercules and Mars.

Development then exploded in the 1920s, in a virtual motorcycling mania. Almost 50 companies offered motorcycles in the Nuremberg region. Makes like Hecker, Ardie and Triumph came onto the market – and of course also Zündapp, whose "Motorcycle for Everyman" began carrying it to the market lead in 1922.

By the 1930s, Nuremberg already counted as the motorcycle capital of Germany. But the era of the true motorcycle legends only began after 1945. At Zündapp, it was the KS 601; at Triumph, the "Boss"; at Victoria, the "Bergmeister." But the worst crisis of all was to begin around 1955: the automobile, led by Volkswagen's "Beetle," wrested the lead away from the motorcycles. Not much later, for most companies, it was all over.

Hercules and Motorcycles

Hercules, Nuremberg's longest-standing bicycle maker, began series-producing its first motorcycles as early as 1905. But not for long – because these expensive, technically rather unreliable vehicles failed to pay off.

Hercules survived World War I and the ensuing years of crisis and inflation quite well by making bicycles, as well as junction boxes, conduits and steel-tube furniture. In subsequent years, the company's records show a vigorous upswing in business.

This growth in sales of imported articles was probably what led Hercules back into the now-booming motorcycle market so late, only in 1929. It built its cycles as a "Konfektionär": it made its chassis units in-house, but procured the engines from such makers as JAP, Villiers, Columbus, Bark, Moser, Küchen, Ilo, and of course Sachs in Schweinfurt.

The Hercules-Sachs partnership dated back to 1905, when Ernst Sachs revolutionized bicycle construction by inventing the Torpedo coaster brake hub. The low-powered motors that Sachs developed and mass-produced for both low-speed and higher-speed mopeds became firmly established on the market worldwide. These two-stroke vehicles, affectionately known as "Sachserlas" in Franconia, were a major factor in the massive motorization of the 1930s.

The Triumph works on Fürther Strasse

Fürther Strasse, a primary artery between Nuremberg and Fürth and the site, in 1835, of Germany's first railroad, subsequently developed into a prototypical "axis of industrialization." This was home to a large segment of the area's two-wheeler industry in the 1920s and 1930s. Among the most important was the Triumph works, which burgeoned swiftly from small beginnings into a factory site that dominated the streetscape for decades – as shots from a variety of dates show.

But it could summon that amount of power at just 4000 rpm – quite enough for the everyday needs of a sidecar motorcycle. A twin-port system and a new precombustion chamber system with an enlarged air filter system helped muffle noise.

Victoria – From the penny-farthing to the Bergmeister

The company was founded in 1886 by two enthusiasts for penny-farthing bicycles, as a commercial partnership named Frankenburger&Ottenstein OHG. In the search for new areas of activity, in 1899 the firm was reconstituted as a stock corporation, Victoria AG. The company began making fast printing presses for books and an entirely newly designed Victoria motor car.

The best known of these models was the Victoria "doctor car" of 1905. This two-seater, powered at 5 hp(M) and with a top speed of about 25 kph (about 15 mph), now has a home at the Museum for Industrial Culture.

The prototype of the first Victoria motorcycle was presented in 1901, making Victoria one of Germany’s pioneers in motorcycle construction. Based on its years of experience in making bicycles, the company began "series production" in 1903, outfitting reinforced bicycle frames with engines procured from outside.

After production was interrupted by the war, the company quickly returned to the fast-growing motorcycle market in 1920. Victoria's heavy KR1 touring cycle was intended primarily for well-to-do customers – and the sales figures proved it was a success. Smaller models came only later, and Victoria developed into a highly creative Nuremberg motorcycle maker.

The Swing's technical refinements were intended to make riding fun. Victoria was focusing here on buyers who were not looking for a mere everyday vehicle, but something for pleasure riding during leisure time – a good approach, but one the company adopted too late.

The Zündapp works

In 1903, Fritz Neumeyer began industrial production of toy steam engines, toy trains and mechanical pencils in Nuremberg. This led to setting up production for drawn tubing, as a technical basis for manufacturing products that also included weaponry. In 1917, Neumeyer then founded Zünder- und Apparatebau GmbH, an "ignition and apparatus construction company" headquartered in Nuremberg.

The loss of orders after the war ended threatened to finish off the company's highly specialized armaments business. In the search for new products, the company tried making everything from automated chain mesh machines to typewriters – but without success. Which led in 1921 to the inception of the motorcycle era.

Unlike many bicycle makers who had arrived at motorcycles more or less by necessity, Zündapp started out with a predetermined slogan, making a "Motorcycle for Everyman." The idea quickly met with an enthusiastic response. Among young people especially, the first years after the war were dominated by a sense of new beginnings and a desire for individual mobility.

The strategy worked well, and by the end of 1924 Zündapp had sold 10,000 motorcycles. It was well on its way to becoming Nuremberg’s biggest maker of motorcycles in the coming decades.

Richard Küchen (1897–1974)

Richard Küchen, born in Bielefeld in 1898, began building motorcycle engines to his own design just after the end of World War I. In a period when two-stroke engines were still "modern," he worked only with four-stroke motors. Even the early designs for this "K" series of built-in engines already stood out for their harmonious look, elegant lines and shapely full encapsulation – features that would remain Küchen’s trademarks. In 1931 Küchen came to Nuremberg in connection with an order that chief designer Otto Reitz, who had been recruited from NSU, had received to develop Triumph's four-stroke product line.

This failed to materialize, however, because at Zündapp Küchen was offered a chance to develop an entirely new line of motorcycle models – the "K" series (though here, "K" stands not for Küchen, but for "Kastenrahmen" and "Kardanantrieb" – "box frame" and "universal shaft drive"). With its elegant pressed-steel frame and sleek engine-transmission units, the "K" series was probably the era's most elegant range of motorcycles.

The "Nuremberg High-Performance Test" could be considered the forerunner of all later motocross races. Held in 1939 on the difficult terrain around the city's "Schmausenbuck" hill, the event placed extreme demands on both rider and equipment. The new Zündapp, ridden by Eugen Haselbeck, won its class.

Thea Fischer – A Nuremberg Motorcycle Pioneer

Thea Fischer, born in 1907, was a Nuremberg motorcycle enthusiast in the 1920s. She recalled: "People would stare at me like they'd seen a ghost even before I'd left driving school. In those days you had to learn a lot, especially how to make repairs. There were just so many little things that could cause a breakdown. One time I was waiting at the Königstor and the motorcycle just stopped. I knew what I had to do – I unscrewed my carburetor and blew through it. People just halted stock still and the streetcar stopped and a policeman came up and said I should get out of there. I said, 'I can't, it won't run!'"

Thea Fischer took part in a variety of motorcycle competitions, gathering experience with various Nuremberg motorcycle makes, just as she did routinely every day. She was a member of the Triumph Club and the Hecker Club, and of course rode both makes. She was less enthusiastic about the Hecker – it gave her lots of trouble. Not so the Victoria, which had been her first motorcycle after she earned her driver’s license in 1927, and her Triumph also ran well. "That was the best make in those days." She worked at Ardie until her marriage, but for "endurance trials and small races" she would ride motorcycles from Hecker or Scharrer & Gross.

In 1940, Thea Fischer joined the Reichspost, driving heavy Zündapp sidecar units as a motorized mail carrier. After the war ended, she switched to cars: she and her husband bought a Kleinschnittger microcar. Her new hobby? Flying.

The order for Zündapp to develop a heavy-duty motorcycle was aimed at a real wartime vehicle for hard use in the field. The job called for something entirely new. Power came from a 26 hp(M), 750 cc two-cylinder four-stroke OHV boxer engine. Among the many unusual technical features was a four-speed transmission with additional off-road and reverse gears. The KS 750 was the first mass-produced motorcycle in the history of the machine to use hydraulic brakes. The spring-suspension sidecar wheel was driven via a torsion shaft inside the frame tube and a gear reduction.

18,000 motorcycles of this kind were sold to the Wehrmacht. The sidecars were developed and produced by another Nuremberg company, Steib.
A model highly prized by collectors today.

The company had sold 15,000 of these machines by 1949 – a solid reentry into the market for Zündapp. The company’s decision to adhere to the principle of a "motorcycle for anyone" proved to be just the right choice: the DB 200 and its successors, all unapologetically utilitarian models, held the largest share of registrations in the 200 cc category until 1953.

Ernst Schmidt (1905 – 1993) – Father of the "Green Elephant"

After completing his degree in mechanical engineering, Ernst Schmidt began his career at Faber-Castell. Following an intermediate stop in Berlin, he joined Zündapp, where in 1936 he became chief designer. He first worked on designing a sidecar unit for use in extreme terrain, the K 500 and KS 500. A more important development, and a very significant one for Zündapp, was an aircraft engine built under a "secret special order." The result, an air-cooled 2000 cc four-cylinder in-line engine, was a success at the first try, and set a number of records for speed, altitude and distance. After an interlude at NSU Motorenwerke, where he developed the "Kettenkrad" tracked motorcycle in 1939, Ernst Schmidt returned to Zündapp in 1945.

The Nuremberg Motorcycle Museum at the Museum for Industrial Culture

The "legends in chrome and steel" kept rolling off the production lines here until the mid-1950s. But as the "motorcycle crisis" then set in with the dawning age of the automobile, the reputations of the "Green Elephant," "Boss," and "Bergmeister" began to dim.

The Museum has some 130 vintage motorcycles on display – all of them "Made in Nuremberg."
Nuremberg Motorcycle Museum