The introduction of the safe bicycle led to the invention of the motorcycle. The very first steam powered motorcycle was made in the 1860s by Pierre Michaux, a blacksmith in Paris. Those motorcycles were called the Michaux-Perreaux Steam Velocipede.
A German, Gottlieb Daimler invented the first petrol engine motorcycle in 1885. The modern day motorcycle design is adopted from a model made by Eugene and Michel Werner. Their motocyclette was exhibited in 1897.
However, the German-built Hildebrand & Wolfmuller motorcycle was the first motorized, two-wheeled vehicle sold to the public.
Hildebrand & Wolfmuller was also the first company to refer to the vehicle as a ‘motorcycle’.
In the early 1950s the NSU Company in Germany started producing the evergreen motorcycles called mopeds.
Motor scooters first appeared in Italy in 1946 and the first one was Vespa.
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