A new passion for engines
In the autumn of 1896, Václav Klement went to Paris, then the world’s capital of motoring, from where he brought a rudimentary “motocyclette” for inspiration. It only ran when it felt like it, one of its main weaknesses being the impractical engine located above the powered front wheel. Not surprisingly, Laurin knocked out his front teeth on a test ride. However, his subsequent experiments gave rise to the concept of the modern motorcycle still in use today.
In 1904 the production premises in Mladá Boleslav were illuminated by both daylight and powerful arc lamps that work on a similar principle to electric welders.
On a memorable Saturday, 18 November 1899, two models of L&K “motorised two-wheelers” – types A and B – were presented to journalists in Prague. Klement marketed them aggressively at home and abroad, gaining international success by securing an order for 150 machines from the renowned London dealer Henry Hewetson. He convinced the businessman that a three-minute training session was enough to master the “Laurinka”, as it was nicknamed. Klement came back from England with an order that was ten times the company’s annual production at the time. A quarter of a year later, more orders arrived from Germany. The new sales were a reaction to the first prize and gold medal that the L&K motorcycle won in its category at an international exhibition in Frankfurt am Main.
In the left of the picture, one of the prototype automobiles stands in front of the factory. The hose between the front wheels is the engine cooling pipe.
At the same time, during the summer of 1900, the company offered discounts on its bicycles and motorcycles, and at the same time a prototype of the car they were preparing grabbed the public’s attention when it was paraded through Prague. True, it was still far from finished; the four-wheeler had been assembled from motorcycle parts, with handlebars instead of a steering wheel and the driver sitting on a perch behind the passenger.
On Sunday, 1 July 1900, cyclists staged a ride through Prague. By the Invalidovna building in Karlin district, heads were turned by a Laurin & Klement “quadricycle” with a petrol engine. Five years and a series of prototypes later, the company launched its first automobile, the L&K Voiturette A.
But the whirlwind of success and innovation continued. In June 1901, L&K took on international competition in the challenging conditions of the Paris to Berlin race, and the company was soon collecting one winner’s laurel after another in the surrounding countries. The 1904 season, by which time the company was producing motorcycles with one, two and even four cylinders (one of the first factories in the world to do so), with air-cooled or water-cooled engines, saw the L&K brand pick up a record of 56 first prizes plus 59 second and third prizes out of the 64 motoring events the company took part in between 1903 and 1904. Not surprisingly, the licence for Slavia motorcycles was purchased by the German factory Seidel & Naumann, which had a workforce of 2,800 people compared to L&K’s 310. The result was Germania motorcycles.
In March 1904, one of the first four-cylinder motorcyles in the world, the 735 cm3 CCCC-type, provided proof of the company’s technical proficiency.