Diamond Model 36 with a 98cc-Sachs built-in motor
Diamond is a historic brand of motorcycles.
De bedrijfsnaam was: Diamant-Fahrradwerke, Gebr. Nevoigt, Reichenbrand, Saxony, later Elite-Diamant-Werke AG, Siegmar-Schönau (Brand-Erbisdorf).
Diamond was a bicycle plant that began in 1903 with the production of tricycles and motorcycles with Fafnir built-in engines. Soon engineers made their own engine blocks, both single-cylinder and V-twins, but like many brands, production was quickly terminated. Diamond did that like Opel and Adler in 1907 and again produced bicycles and sewing machines.
Only in 1926 were motorcycles delivered. Perhaps that was why Franz Gnädig sold his own brand including his self-developed engine to Kühne because he developed the motorcycles for Diamond and also bought his own engines at Kühne. In 1927 Gnädig became even a company leader for the motorcycle department. In addition to Gnädig's 350cc-Kühne headliner engine, 500cc models were purchased at Kühne, but at the customer's request, a JAP head or side engine could also be mounted.
In 1926 Diamond took over the Elite Works, which actually returned to this company. Elite was started as the Elite Diamond in 1903, but was divorced from Diamond in 1914 to make automobiles.
The new Elite Diamond AG was once again taken over by Opel, who only used the factory to make the Opel Motoclub with its own Opel blocks. The frame of these machines was developed by Ernst Neumann Neander, who had stopped his own production for a while. For the Motoclub production team, Opel had a few hundred 500cc diamond motorcycles with the Opel logo on the market. Opel also did not build the motorcycles for long. In 1930, a year after its acquisition by General Motors, it was all about driving autoproduction.
One tried to keep the plant running by using Neander's duraluminium frame combined with Richard Küchen's 350 and 500cc single-cylinder and selling these "EO" (Elite-Opel) machines. This lasted only one year (until 1931).
In the meantime, Diamond had converted production into light, cheap motorcycles with 75 and 100cc Sachs two-stroke engines. That was quite successful: it was full until the start of World War II.
There was another brand named Diamond: see Diamond (Bekkevoort).
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