In 1872 Gottlieb Daimler took a position as technical director at Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz. Differences with the management caused him to leave the company in mid-1882 to start up his own business.
In Cannstatt on Taubenheimstrasse Gottlieb Daimler purchased a villa for 75,000 Gold marks. The large garden of the villa contained a greenhouse which he immediately enlarged with a brick extension and outfitted as a workshop and testing station. At the same time the garden paths were broadened so that vehicles could drive on them.
In the garden house Gottlieb Daimler now carried out the first tests for the small high-speed internal combustion engine together with Wilhelm Maybach, who had left Deutz for Cannstatt with Daimler. Daimler's basic approach was to use petrol as the sole fuel for his engines, and to install these in every conceivable type of vehicle – on land, on water and in the air.
The tests were conducted in greatest secrecy because Gottlieb Daimler feared that his idea might become known to the competition. Even the domestics and the gardener who was needed to take care of the large park were not let in on what Maybach and he were doing in the garden house. That aroused the suspicion of gardener Weinbuch, in particular, who one day told a police officer he suspected that Daimler und Maybach were making counterfeit coins in the greenhouse, because he often heard knocking and the sound of metal. When the police called on the two engineers one night, to their surprise instead of a minting machine they only found tools and engine parts. From then on Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach were able to continue their research undisturbed by the police and by 1883 had developed the first high-speed four-stroke engine. With that Gottlieb Daimler realised his vision of a universally employable drive and changed the world.
The workshop in the greenhouse of the garden building in Cannstatt is a Gottlieb Daimler Memorial today and contains a small museum.
In Cannstatt on Taubenheimstrasse Gottlieb Daimler purchased a villa for 75,000 Gold marks. The large garden of the villa contained a greenhouse which he immediately enlarged with a brick extension and outfitted as a workshop and testing station. At the same time the garden paths were broadened so that vehicles could drive on them.
In the garden house Gottlieb Daimler now carried out the first tests for the small high-speed internal combustion engine together with Wilhelm Maybach, who had left Deutz for Cannstatt with Daimler. Daimler's basic approach was to use petrol as the sole fuel for his engines, and to install these in every conceivable type of vehicle – on land, on water and in the air.
The tests were conducted in greatest secrecy because Gottlieb Daimler feared that his idea might become known to the competition. Even the domestics and the gardener who was needed to take care of the large park were not let in on what Maybach and he were doing in the garden house. That aroused the suspicion of gardener Weinbuch, in particular, who one day told a police officer he suspected that Daimler und Maybach were making counterfeit coins in the greenhouse, because he often heard knocking and the sound of metal. When the police called on the two engineers one night, to their surprise instead of a minting machine they only found tools and engine parts. From then on Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach were able to continue their research undisturbed by the police and by 1883 had developed the first high-speed four-stroke engine. With that Gottlieb Daimler realised his vision of a universally employable drive and changed the world.
The workshop in the greenhouse of the garden building in Cannstatt is a Gottlieb Daimler Memorial today and contains a small museum.
