Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen was born in Nakskov and trained as an apprentice, first in Copenhagen and then at the Guldborg factory in Nykøbing Falster. From there he travelled to Germany to study and work.
In 1906 Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen bought a spinning mill in Zschopau. He re-equipped the factory to produce machinery, metalwork and armatures. The German army gave him an order for a steam-powered vehicle (Damp Kraft Wagen) and this provided the name for the new factory: DKW. The project was dropped in 1923, however.
As early as 1920 Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen had built a little 2-stroke engine of 118 cc capacity that could be mounted on the luggage carrier of a bicycle with a belt drive to the rear wheel. He sold 30,000 of these engines in 4 years. Later DKW produced proper motorbikes, including the so-called ”Blood Blister” (Blutblase), which got its nickname from the blood-red petrol tank. It was a 200 cc 2-stroke.
In 1927 DKW sold 27,000 motorbikes. In 1928 sales reached 43,000 and in 1929 a total of 60,000 machines were sold. In 1928 DKW took over from Harley Davidson as the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer.
Although the average consumer had a very limited budget, the motorcycle factories continued to develop large V2 machines (two cylinders in a V-configuration): this included Indian, Harley Davidson, Husqvarna, BSA, Royal Enfield, Matchless and NSU. I England the J.A.P factory on the outskirts of London was well-known for its big V-engines which were also used in 3-wheeled cars and – most notably – in the legendary Brough Superior motorcycle. Similarly, the big producers also developed 4-cylinder in-line engines; these included Henderson, Indian, Cleveland, ACE and – in 1934 – Nilfisk with its new 4-cylinder ”Bumblebee” (746 cc).
In 1931 the Ariel factory announced its Ariel 4F or ”Square Four”, initially with an engine of 498 cc. This increased over the years to 995 cc., which is the size of the Museum’s specimen. Edward Turner was the designer of this famous engine type with 4 cylinders in a square configuration. Turner later moved to the Triumph factory where in 1937 he produced the Triumph Speed Twin, a parallel twin-cylindered sports machine which many other manufacturers tried to emulate. During the 1930’s experiments were made with turbocharged engines and this continued up to the outbreak of the Second World War. After the war, turbochargers were banned from motor-racing, but were permitted in drag racing.
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