Oldest 4-Stroke Cycle Engine in the World

Amongst the great ones, Crossley Brothers Engine No. 1355 is one of the most historically significant 4-stroke cycle engines in the world. It boasts an incomparable pedigree among 4-stroke cycle engines and is now on public display for the first time in decades.

The story starts with the world’s first successful IC engines built in the late 1860s by Gasmotoren Fabrik Deutz in Cologne, Germany, and Crossley Brothers in Manchester, England. These early Otto Langen non-compression atmospheric engines made a huge statement by showing the world economical and easy starting options compared to the complexity and hazards of steam power. Although physically limited to a maximum of 3hp, these early pre-4-stroke cycle machines were noisy and mechanically cumbersome, but production reached about 5,000 engines by 1877.