Peugeot built motorcycles before Harley-Davidson: the forgotten story

Yes, Peugeot was building motorcycles before Harley-Davidson even existed. The French brand showed its first powered machine in 1898, and by 1901 it was rolling 200 of them out of the factory, as Thomas points out in his short. Harley-Davidson, meanwhile, only put its first motorcycle together in 1903, in Milwaukee. France isn't just a country full of riders: it's where the motorcycle industry was born, and that story deserves to be told.

Did Peugeot really build motorcycles before Harley-Davidson?

Yes, with a five-year head start: the first Peugeot motorcycle dates from 1898, while Harley-Davidson wasn't founded until 1903, according to the American brand's own official history. This isn't a footnote for trivia night, it turns the whole story on its head. Ask riders which motorcycle brand is the oldest and the name that comes back most often is Harley. And it's wrong.

To put things back in order, here's the timeline Thomas runs through in his video, lined up against the dates everyone knows from the other side of the Atlantic:

In other words, by the time the Davidson brothers and William Harley were tinkering with their first prototype, Peugeot had already been turning out motorcycles in series for two years.

So what could that first 1898 Peugeot actually do?

On paper it was a humble machine, with its little 1.5 horsepower engine, but in practice it was revolutionary: almost nobody was building powered two-wheelers back then. At that point the motorcycle wasn't an object of passion yet, it was an engineer's experiment. You took a frame borrowed from the bicycle, bolted a newborn engine onto it, and found out on the road what the invention could become.

The real shift came in 1901. Building 200 units in one go, in a factory, changed everything: this was no longer a workshop one-off but an industry getting going. According to Thomas in the video, it's exactly this move to series production that makes Peugeot a global pioneer of the powered two-wheeler, long before the big American and Japanese names showed up.

Why did the De Dion-Bouton engine take over the world?

Because it was simply years ahead of everything else: manufacturers all over the world copied it for a decade. Behind that half-forgotten name sits a French company that developed a small, light, reliable engine, exactly what you needed to power a two-wheeler at a time when most engines were heavy, moody and bulky.

That engine powered the first Peugeots, and that engine served as the template, officially or otherwise, for a whole generation of manufacturers in Europe and in America. The technology that launched the motorcycle worldwide had a French accent. We rarely stop to think how much that one detail shifts the picture: the pioneers of Milwaukee learned the same way everyone else did, by watching what was happening in France.

Is France really the birthplace of the motorcycle?

Yes, and not just because of Peugeot: Thomas points out that more than a thousand motorcycle brands were born on French soil. A thousand brands means workshops in nearly every region, engineers, racers, records, a whole industrial culture that shaped the motorcycle we ride today.

"We invented the thing, we mastered the tech, and today we've forgotten all of it." (Thomas, GeoRide founder)

There are still living traces of it. Our legendary roads, our mountain passes, our race tracks tell that story in their own way: if you fancy riding across this founding ground, take a look at the motorcycle tracks in every region of France or treat yourself to a ride through the heart of Burgundy's vineyards. French motorcycle heritage isn't something you visit in a museum, it's something you ride.

Why did we forget the motorcycle was born here?

Because the motorcycle culture that has filled our screens for decades is American, and a well-told legend ends up standing in for the facts. Films, music and marketing installed Harley-Davidson as the founding figure of motorcycling, to the point where even French enthusiasts instinctively place the birth of the motorcycle in the United States. The industrial record says the opposite, it just didn't have Hollywood to tell its side.

The good news: nothing says we have to let that memory fade out. Understanding where the motorcycle comes from also helps you see where it's heading, and you can follow that thread through how motorcycle technology has changed over the last ten years, where France, as it happens, is still playing its part. And to turn that curiosity into kilometers, nothing beats a motorcycle road book across France, on the very roads where it all started.

Where GeoRide fits in

This story hits close to home for us: GeoRide is a French brand, and our devices are built in France, following straight on from that two-wheeler know-how that started in 1898. Cutting-edge motorcycle technology never left the country, it just changed shape: if the subject grabs you, take a look at our GPS tracker designed and built in France.

FAQ

Which is the oldest motorcycle brand still in business?

Peugeot presents itself as the oldest maker of powered two-wheelers still in business, with a first motorcycle in 1898. Harley-Davidson, often wrongly named as the elder of the two, wasn't founded until 1903, according to its own official history.

When did Harley-Davidson build its first motorcycle?

Harley-Davidson was founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, according to the brand's official history. By then Peugeot had already been building motorcycles in series for two years, with 200 units leaving the factory back in 1901, according to the figures Thomas quotes in the video.

What is the De Dion-Bouton engine?

It's a French engine from the end of the 19th century, light and reliable, which powered the first Peugeot motorcycles. According to Thomas, it was so far ahead of its time that manufacturers around the world copied it for around ten years, which makes it one of the founding engines of motorcycling worldwide.

How many motorcycle brands were born in France?

More than a thousand motorcycle brands were born on French soil, according to Thomas in the video. Most of them disappeared over the course of the 20th century, but they are proof of an era when France led both the invention and the industry of the powered two-wheeler.