Honeymoon on Mars, 1928

While it may sound like part of a wedding package circa 2050, after President-for-Life Musk develops his off-world colonies for space tourism, a lovely young German couple had the original Honeymoon on Mars nearly a Century ago.  From a family album in a private collection (very near our lovebirds’ home in Heilbronn), comes the anonymous tale that commences in 1925, with a proud young man on a Mars motorcycle.  On this machine he toured, attended rallies with friends, even wooed and won his future bride, with whom he honeymooned after attaching a sidecar to his noble steed.

Yes, in the early days of the German motorcycle industry, there was a Mars, a top-of-the-market machine of special configuration.  The Mars factory had been around since 1873 in Nürnberg, Germany, founded by Paul Reissmann to manufacture stoves, expanding to grinding machines, bicycles, and even small cars.  In 1903 they included motorcycles in their catalogue, using engines by Zedel and Fafnir, and manufactured various models on and off through 1953.  The futuristic Mars in our lovebirds’ story was designed by Claus Franzenburg, and was sold as the model A20 from 1920, with a distinctive box-section frame running from the headstock to the rear wheel in a dramatic dash, that made the Mars look far ahead of its time.  The box frame also housed the fuel and oil tanks, plus a 2-speed dual-chain system with no clutch necessary – just crank the big wooden knob atop the frame for Low or High. The 956cc flat-twin sidevalve engine was also designed by Franzenburg, and was mounted below the frame box on a subframe: the engine was actually built by Maybach in Friedrichshafen, the luxury car manufacturer that also built engines for the zeppelins built in the same town (if you’re ever there, you must visit the remarkable Zeppelin Museum).

A20 was built through 1925, and is likely the model in our photo album.  The Mars A20 (or ‘White Mars’ as commonly known, although they sold red and green versions) was a true luxury motorcycle, as you might imagine with the Maybach connection, and was finished to a superb standard. They were expensive then and are still highly coveted for their unique, advanced styling and engineering.  But, the Mars is a 1920s motorcycle, built just after WW1, and has charming quirks that bely its modernistic impression: like a Model T, it’s started using a hand crank, and the performance, despited the large motor, is very 1920, with a top speed of 55mph, but a cruising speed more like 35mph, according to a former owner (who also happens to own this photo album). “It will cruise at 60kph (36mph), but not for long; to maintain the engine, it’s better to keep it to 50kph (30mph), and with a sidecar attached, our friends in 1928 might have averaged 40kph (22mph), or even less when climbing up the Alps.”  

It’s good to remember that in 1925-28, most of the roads through southern Germany were not paved with macadam, but were gravel or simply dirt, especially in the mountains.  And 30mph on a gravel road is plenty fast on a machine with minimal suspension, and most ‘street’ riders even today don’t feel comfortable exceeding this on gravel riding a modern road bike.  In short, our hero was right to be proud of his mount, as a classy piece of machinery with plenty of speed for the conditions at hand, and when he later wooed and wed his lovely bride, and attached a heavy sidecar, her comfort was paramount, and would not be enhanced by tearing around in the dust.  Still, she was game, and looks happy with the situation.

Honeymoon on Mars

Our hero purchased his fabulous White Mars A20 in or before 1925, where he poses proudly in the woods near his home in Heilbronn, not far from the Mars factory in Nürnberg: it was the local product, one of many motorcycles manufactured in the region, but surely the finest in the era. He was an enthusiastic Mars man, and a member of the Mars Club, but he was no snob; he had friends who rode a D Rad, and even attended a D Rad rally with them in 1927. At a Mars Club rally in 1927, he proudly notes entering their road trial, where he rode 500km (300 miles!) without a single lost point, keeping his mount immaculate all the while.

1927 was the Year of Courtship, and women being to appear in the group ride and picnic photos with friends.  His future bride looks very happy with her man and his shining white steed, and those quiet picnics on the grass in the woods had their natural consequence: the couple was wed in the Spring of 1928, and had a child the same year, so let’s say there was some urgency to the ceremony.   Despite her pregnancy, the couple took an extensive tour of southern Germany and Austria for their unique Honeymoon on Mars.  They hugged the picturesque Alps, still beautifully covered in snow, while in the valleys the trees were all abloom, a perfect bouquet for the newlyweds.

As mentioned, a child soon arrived, which slowed down their motorcycling activities, and the album ends by the end of 1928, when presumably real life took command, and the realities of raising a family prioritized. We’ll never know for certain how the story ended, but it’s indicative their grandchildren (presumably) saw fit to sell such a precious family album.  Given events that transpired in Germany in the 1930s, one can imagine all sorts of possibilities, but let’s leave our home movie in a slow vignette fade-out, with a happy couple sat with their baby on the Mars, under a blooming magnolia tree with snowy Alps in the distance, after a remarkable Honeymoon on Mars.

All about Mars

As mentioned, the Mars was a unique and forward-thinking design built in Nurmburg, and was perhaps inspired by the proximity of airship and airplane construction in Friedrichshaven.  The core of the design is the frame, a box-section tube made of bent sheet steel, riveted together. This incorporated the steering head and rear wheel support, as well as the fuel and oil tanks, and the twin-chain two-speed final drive.  The result was an elegant design that looked far more modern than it was; the low power, two-speed drive, and lack of a front brake speak to the typical specifications of the day.

The Mars is extraordinary, and very modern for a 1920 design.  The quality of its construction is legendary, as our photos show: the fit and finish is superb, as is the quality of the castings from Maybach.  It’s still a 1920 motorcycle though, and there was plenty about the Mars that belies its antiquity: note the primer tap atop the swan-like intake manifold, necessary for starting up (using the hand crank!) on cold days with the rather crude Pallas carburetor that has no cold-start choke system.

The immediate post-war era saw an explosion of new motorcycle design ideas directly influenced by the rapid development of aircraft design during WW1.  Many of the most advanced designs from 1919-1923 were in fact built by former aircraft manufacturers that had lost their market with the cessation of hostilities, or were barred by the Versailles Treaty from making planes.  The most famous of these were of course the 1918 ABC (built by Sopwith), and the BMW R32 (from a former aero-engine builder), but the Mars should also be included, given Maybach’s manufacture of advanced aero engines during the war, most notably the Mb.IVa engine, used in both airships and airplanes.