Motorenfabrik Oberursel

Motorenfabrik Oberursel A.G. was a German manufacturer of automobile, locomotive and aircraft engines situated in Oberursel (Taunus), near Frankfurt (Main), Germany. During World War I it supplied a major 100 hp-class rotary engine that was used in a number of early-war fighter aircraft designs. In 1921 the company merged with Deutz AG, and then again in 1930 with Humboldt-Deutz Motoren, and finally in 1938 with Klöcknerwerke AG. From this point on they were known as the Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz Oberursel factory, known primarily for their locomotive engines. Today they are part of Rolls-Royce Deutschland, and produce one family of their jet engines.

The factory in Oberursel is claimed to be the oldest surviving aircraft engine factory in the world.

The company had its origins in 1891, when Willy Seck invented a new gasoline fuel injection system and produced a small one-cylinder stationary engine of about 4 hp, which he called the Gnom. The following year he founded Willy Seck & Co. to sell the design, which became famous around the world. The engine was improved to achieve more power, but in 1897 the shareholders refused to allow Seck to develop a Gnom-powered car and he left the company. The company was reorganized as Motorenfabrik Oberursel the next year, and by 1900 had built 2,000 engines.

The same year the company granted a license to the Seguin brothers in Lyon to produce the Gnom in France. Sold under the French name Gnome, the engine became so successful that they renamed their company to the same name. In 1908 they developed a rotary version of the basic Gnome system as the Gnome Omega aircraft engine, and from there a series of larger versions of the same basic design. The new Gnome engines were wildly successful, powering many of the early record breaking aircraft.

In 1913 Motorenfabrik Oberursel took out a license on the French Gnome engine design and the similar Le Rhône 9C. They produced both, the Gnomes as the U-series, and the Le Rhônes as the UR-series.

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