With its large fin tail it reminds of a huge fish. With a length of 3,70 m and a height of 1,10 m the “Delphin III” shown at the top is definitely not just another bike. In 1956 the legendary motorcycle race driver Wilhelm Herz caused a lot of furor with such a custom bike. On the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah he broke the 300 km/h “sonic barrier” for motorcycles.

In remembrance of Wilhelm Herz, who died in 1998, his son Heinz decided to build a replica of this record vehicle using the original NSU blueprints. During the 2006 “Speed Week” at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Heinz Herz undertook some demonstration drives with this “dinosaur”.

After breaking several car speed records in the 1960s, Wilhelm Herz wanted to be again the fastest man on a motorcycle. The “Delphin IV” shown now at the Technik Museum Speyer was the last model of a development series which had been started by NSU. Since NSU no longer produced motorcycles at that time it was up to Wilhelm Herz to put all the experience he had gained with the previous models into this bike. Herz wanted to raise the speed record for motorcycles to 400 km/h and beyond. To work against the lifting forces he attached lateral wings. The test drives were promising but strong rain falls ended his dream.