Even though somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 examples were reportedly built, these first production motorcycles are rare today. They were the world’s first internal combustion-powered motorcycles to be in series production, and this 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller is said to be the earliest numbered one left on the planet. It will be auctioned here on Bonhams at The Grand Palais Éphémère in Paris, France, and the auction estimate is between $135,000 and $250,000.

I thought this model looked familiar, I saw one at the mind-blowing Barber Motorsports Museum outside of Birmingham, Alabama a few years ago and took this photo. It’s one of the very few left and one of under a handful in the U.S., so it was fun to see it in person. The one for auction here is reportedly an unrestored original piece, other than the tires and “rubber bands”, which help in starting. Please look at the photos that Bonhams has provided, they’re outstanding.

Hildebrand & Wolfmüller sounds like a vaudeville act, but the Hildebrand brothers were both engineers in the steam engine industry. They combined forces with Alois Wolfmüller, an engineer and inventor, to produce the first series production motorcycle in 1894. These weren’t exactly user-friendly at the time, but the 1890s were different than times are today. There were steam-powered two-wheel vehicles and even gasoline-powered ones at this time, but none would be factory-produced and this is the first instance of a motorized two-wheeler being referred to as a motorcycle, or “Motorrad”, in Munich, Germany where the factory was.

The Hildebrand & Wolfmüller motorrad/motorcycle wasn’t for the faint of heart, as most vehicles of this era weren’t. This was a “jump and run” motorcycle, in that they didn’t have a clutch or pedals, so you pushed it until it started and then jumped on and hoped for the best as far as stopping goes. With a top speed of somewhere between 25 and 30 mph, in an era of less-than-ideal roadways, not to mention having primitive brakes on the front wheel only. 

The steam-powered history of the era and the inventors’ experience are evident in the engine involved in powering this unique motorcycle. Two long connecting rods directly powered the rear wheel, which was common on steam engines. The engine itself is a 1,488-cc twin-cylinder, water-cooled, four-stroke unit, which had a mere 2.5 horsepower, but that was good for 25 to 30 mph as mentioned earlier, and that was fast in 1894. Have any of you heard of this early motorcycle?