Today in 1885, Gottlieb Daimler and his lifelong business partner, Wilhelm Maybach, installed a small version of Daimler's "grandfather clock"  engine in a wooden, two-wheeler frame with two outrigger wheels, creating the first internal combustion motorcycle.   Maybach rode it for two miles alongside the river Neckar, from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim, reaching 7 mph.  Their goal was to create small, high-speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device. In 1883 they had designed a horizontal, cylinder-layout compressed-charge, liquid petroleum engine that fulfilled Daimler's desire for a high-speed engine which could be throttled, making it useful in transportation applications. This engine was called Daimler's Dream.  They had earlier created a carburretor which mixed gasoline with air, allowing its use as fuel. In the same year Daimler and Maybach assembled a larger version of their engine, still relatively compact, but now with a vertical cylinder of 100 cc displacement and an output of 1 hp at 600 rpm. It was baptised the Standuhr ("grandfather clock"), because Daimler thought it resembled an old pendulum clock.

Karl Benz also  claimed to have invented the gasoline-powered auto engine and built his first automobile, powered by a one-cylinder gasoline engine, in 1885 and started selling cars in 1887.  Daimler designed a series of gasoline-powered engines in 1883 and received a German patent on a three-wheeled gasoline-powered vehicle in 1885.  Daimler-Benz was formed in 1926 by a merger of the two businesses.  In 1901 Daimler sold the first Mercedes, which was equipped with a four-cylinder engine.  Emil Jellinek, a diplomat and major Daimler investor, had suggested that the line be named after his daughter Mercedes because he feared the German-sounding Daimler name would not sell well in France.  Today Mercedes-Benz is a household name.