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Today in Motorcycle History

Kühne Motorcycle Engines

A Brief History of the Marque

Franz Gnädig designed the first Kühne engine in 1925 after Allright took over the Cito firm, and these 350cc OHV units were built in Dresden. Gnädig became a director of Diamant in 1927.

The engines were used by numerous marques in the 1920s including AWD, Diamant, Elfa, Elite, Everest, Indus, Gnadig, KSB, K.Z., Oberwetter, Pan, Sartorius Teco, Wela, Weiss and Zeus. They were often high-performance engines, at least one of which had desmodromic valves.