The world’s first truck

It was one of the greatest talents of inventor Gottlieb Daimler to find ever more applications for his engine. He came up with the motorcycle, the motorized handcar, a motorized fire-fighting pump, and – eventually and almost inevitably – with the truck. Back in 1896, he set up the first truck on iron-clad wooden wheels – a type of carriage without a drawbar but with an engine instead. But as all inventors know, all beginnings are difficult – not only for people who are ahead of their time. While it is true that the world’s first truck initiated motorized road transport as we know it today, it did not attract a single buyer in Germany. In the early stages, the truck had to overcome a great deal of resistance – much more than the passenger car. This story explains the early development and marketplace problems of the truck - the very first truck and a brand new category of vehicle.

Unlike the car, the truck had a hard time winning recognition in the early days. Whereas the high society had welcomed the car with open arms as an enrichment of their personal freedom, the truck came up against severe skepticism in industry: capital goods had to earn money. And of course, Gottlieb Daimler’s first truck was matured only to a limited extent – even though its time had definitely come.

Two-cylinder engine instead of a drawbar

It was one of the greatest talents of inventor Gottlieb Daimler to find ever more applications for his engine. He came up with the motorcycle, the motorized handcar, a motorized fire-fighting pump, and – eventually and almost inevitably – with the truck. Back in 1896, he set up the first truck on iron-clad wooden wheels – a type of carriage without a drawbar but with an engine instead.

Pragmatism was a hallmark of this vehicle with a coach-box, a vertical “cab” reaching up towards the skies, as well as with a platform with the logo “Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft Cannstatt” printed on the side. Strictly speaking, this was a converted horse-drawn cart whose chassis featured transversely mounted, fully elliptic leaf springs at the front and coil springs at the rear. This complex suspension was important not only because of the poor road conditions at the time but also because of the engine’s distinctive sensitivity to vibrations.

The rear-mounted four-hp two-cylinder engine called Phoenix had a displacement of 1.06 liters. It had been adopted from the passenger car, and operated in much the same way. The engine’s typical features included glow-tube ignition and spray-nozzle carburetor. Gottlieb Daimler quoted “the compactness and elegance of the design, the noiseless and jerk-free operation and the odorless exhaust gases” as the major advantages of the Phoenix engines which had been designed to operate on as many as three fuels: gasoline, coal gas and lamp fuel.

Pinion drive as a forerunner of planetary axles

The truck engine operated on gasoline – which, however, had to be bought at the chemist’s at the time. On the other hand, this vehicle already boasted a feature which was to become the trademark of New Generation trucks through to the SK at a much later stage and which is still indispensable in present-day construction site vehicles – an early type of planetary axle.

Belts transmitted the power produced by the engine, which was installed in an upright position underneath the rear end, to a shaft – with pinions at both ends – mounted transversely to the vehicle’s longitudinal axis. Each of these pinions meshed with the internal teeth of a ring gear which was firmly connected with the wheel to be driven.

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