Hello,

This article is about the German

manufacturer. For the UK company of the
same name, see Hercules Cycle and
Motor Company.

Hercules Wankel 2000.

Hercules was a brand of bicycle and
motorcycle manufactured in Germany.
The Hercules Company was founded in
1886[1] to produce bicycles[2] and began
producing motorcycles in 1904. It was
merged with Zweirad Union after being
purchased by ZF Sachs in 1963.[3]
In the 1950s and 1960s Sachs was the
largest European fabricator of two-stroke
motorcycle engines.[4] Many of these
engines were used in the Hercules line of
small motorcycles, scooters and mopeds.
In 1974 Hercules became the first
company to offer a Wankel-
engined motorcycle for sale to the general
public. A prototype was first shown in
1970 at the West Cologne Fall Motorcycle
Show to a mixed reception, and the
production bike was sold as a Hercules
product except in the United Kingdom,
where it was marketed as
a DKW motorcycle. The W-2000 had a
single-rotor air-cooled engine of 294cc
that produced 23 hp, later increased to
32 hp. Cooling was by a large fan placed
in front of the engine (and the slipstream
breeze while riding) and
engine lubrication was by manually adding
oil to the fuel in the tank.[5]
In 1976 Hercules launched the W-2000
Injection in which engine lubrication was
from a separate oil tank via a pump. It had
18-inch wheels, a front disc brake and a
rear drum brake. According to a March
1976 review in Cycle World, the handling
was good but the bike's low ground
clearance limited its cornering ability. That
review also declared the W-2000 to be a
daily commuting bike, not a sport
motorcycle.[5]
Hercules introduced a rotary-powered dirt
bike (the KC-30 GS Enduro) in May 1975,
but the model failed to sell due to its high
price ($2,900).[5]
The Fichtel & Sachs single-rotor engine of
300 cc swept-volume as used in the
Hercules the only commercially
available engine at the time was used
as a basis by BSA's project
engineer David Garside in the early 1970s
when designing a twin-rotor motorcycle
engine of 588 cc, which reached
production as the "Norton Classic".[6]
Production of motorcycles ceased in
1996.
Partial product line[edit]

Hercules S125 of 1938-1943

Hercules K500 19321936
Hercules s125 19391943
Hercules b50 19321935
Hercules Moped, 49cc (1957)
Hercules Scooter, 50cc
Hercules Ultra III Sachs 50 SW
Hercules Lilliput, 98cc
Hercules MK1 moped
Hercules MK2 moped
 Hercules MK3 moped
Hercules MK4 moped
Hercules supra 4gp moped
Hercules supra 4 enduro moped
Hercules Prior Moped
Hercules Lastboy
Hercules K100 (1959)
Hercules R 200 (1959)
Hercules 220 (1965)
Hercules 103 (1966)[7]
Hercules Postie Bike (1969)
Hercules K 105 X (1970)
Hercules K 125 X (1971)
Hercules K 50 RX (1971)
Hercules K 125 Military (19711990)
 Hercules K 125 (1972)
Hercules K 125 T (1973)
Hercules K125 S (19741979)
Hercules W-2000 (19741978)
Hercules E1 (1974)
Hercules KC-30 GS Enduro (1975)
Hercules 175 GS (1976)
Hercules GS250 Ice Racer (1977)
Hercules MC250 (1978)
Hercules DKW 250 GS (1978)
Hercules Prima 5S (1984)
Hercules Prima frisiert
Hercules GS 125B
Hercules KJBe
Hercules K 180 Military (19911996)
References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Deutsche autos,
Motorbuchverlag
2. Jump up^ "1939 Herrenrad
Hercules (Fahrrad Werke, Nurnberg)".
www.OldBike.eu the Online Bicycle
Museum. Retrieved 2016-07-06. The
German Hercules bicycle is a large
and powerful machine
3. Jump up^ History - Official Sachs
Bikes website Archived February 7,
2009, at the Wayback Machine.
4. Jump
up^ dropbears.com. "Hercules
Motorcycles". cybermotorcycle.com.
Retrieved 3 September 2014.
5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Williams,
Greg. "Hercules W-2000: The First
Rotary-Powered
Motorcycle". Motorcycle Classics
March/April 2012. Motorcycle
Classics. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
6. Jump up^ Motorcycle Mechanics,
December 1974, pp.4143. NVT's
Wankel. Interview with David
Garside by John Robinson. Intro:
"After five years of research and
rather touchy secrecy, Triumph
suddenly announced their very own
version of a rotary engine to the Press
and put one on show at Cologne".
Garside: "We started with the only
commercially available engine, the
Fichtel and Sachs, which gave about
20hp. So our first thought was to
double the rotors to get around 40hp
and then by development...we've got it
up to target. On the test bench we've
even had 80hp running with open
exhausts". Accessed 2014-05-12
7. Jump
up^ https://web.archive.org/web/2016
0303224044/http://www.cybermotorcy
cles.com/gallery/hercules/index.htm.
Archived from the original on March 3,
2016. Retrieved June
27, 2009. Missing or empty |
title= (help)