DKW Mod. KM 175 cc (1932).
DKW was a German car- and motorcycle-marque. DKW was one of the four companies that formed Auto Union in 1932 and thus became an ancestor of the modern-day Audi company.
In 1916, Danish engineer Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen founded a factory in Zschopau, Saxony, Germany, to produce steam fittings. That year he attempted to produce a steam-driven car, called the DKW.
Although unsuccessful, he made a two-stroke toy engine in 1919, called Des Knaben Wunsch – “the boy’s wish”. He put a slightly modified version of this engine into a motorcycle and called it Das Kleine Wunder – “the little wonder” the initials from this becoming the DKW brand: by the late 1920s, DKW had become the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer.
Moto Bassella museum, Catalonia, Pyrenees, Spain
