Motorcycles

  The name “BFG” came from the company’s founders: Louis Boccardo, Dominique Favario, and Thierry Grange.  The initial design work was done in 1978 in response to a call...

Bianchi was established by Edoardo Bianchi in 1885 Milan Italy, making Bianchi the world’s oldest bicycle company still in existence. Edoardo Bianchi was considered to be the Henry Ford...

This 2004 BMWr1100s can trace its roots back to the beginning of BMW motorcycles–the 1923 boxer twin called the r32. That motorcycle was admired for its speed and excellent...

BMW had only been building motorcycles for a few years when the world’s economy crashed. Sales of the premium tubular-framed, air-cooled flat-twin “Beemers” cooled, and BMW seized on the...

In 1923, the first BMW motorcycle was produced; in 1949, the first post-war bike appeared and demand for motorcycles was high. With the r51/3 model, BMW turned their attention...

The Centaur Folding Scooter was designed by James Wilford Foster, formerly an American employee of Lambretta, an Italian scooter manufacturer. Marketed as America’s only “full-size” folding scooter, the relatively...

Dale Clifft, creator of the Clifft Commutercycle, invented the Go-Ped in the late 1970s. The Go-Ped is a power assisting device for manually operated vehicles, such as a bicycle,...

  Condor motorcycles began as a bicycle works, Scheffer Freres, (Scheffer Brothers) in the Jura Mountains of southwestern Switzerland in 1891. By 1904, the company was known as Condor,...

The Cushman family began making farm machinery and two-cycle boat motors in Lincoln, Nebraska and founded Cushman Motor Works in 1902. After some success, including the development of the...

Derny began production in 1949, specializing in the manufacture of auxiliary-engined bicycles and tandems, all powered by proprietary engines. The Derny Taon, or “Horse fly” was unveiled at the...

Rosario Di Blasi (1919-2008), a former Italian Air Force pilot and engineer, began developing a folding scooter in 1952. In postwar Rome, bicycle theft was common, as any kind...

Production of the 3800 continued until 1988 when VéloSoleX stopped manufacturing mopeds. However, in 2004, the Cible Group purchased the brand and launched the e-Solex, an electric bicycle, notably...

This homemade electric minibike was built by Richard Kulka of Mansfield, Ohio and used as his commuter vehicle for the two-mile ride from his home to the firehouse where...

Japanese company Fuji Heavy Industries is best known as the parent company of Subaru. Before they made cars, FHI was well-known for their line of scooters and motorcycles, including...

Fuji Heavy Industries created Japan’s first scooter, the Rabbit S-1, in 1946. The S-1 was heavily based on U.S. servicemen’s Powell scooters and was on the market a full...

At the conclusion of WWII Japan’s Nakajima Aircraft Co. was reborn as Fuji Heavy Industries, to manufacture civilian vehicles. They were responsible for the Rabbit S-1, Japan’s first motor...

In the early 1900s, some race tracks were made of wood. Called board tracks, they were constructed of wood because of the low cost and ease of construction. Bicycles...

In 1903, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company was formed when William S. Harley and his friend Arthur Davidson convinced Arthur’s brother Walter to help them finish building the first Harley-Davidson...

Harley- Davidson (H-D) started by making motorized bicycles in 1901. By 1904, after testing, they moved on to a bigger engine and loop-frame design that took it out of...

Hercules was founded in 1886 by Carl Marschütz as a bicycle manufacturer in Nuremberg, Germany. The first Hercules motorcycle debuted in 1904. Marschütz, being Jewish, fled to America during...

The Hercules W-2000 was the first rotary powered motorcycle offered for sale to the public through a dealer network. The W-2000, introduced at the German Ifma Show in 1970,...

Japanese Engineer Soichiro Honda established Honda Motor Co., Ltd. in 1948. He oversaw Honda’s expansion from cobbling together mopeds from bicycles and generator motors in a wooden shack to...

This Honda CB 450 “Black Bomber” is widely considered one of the most important motorcycles ever to come out of Japan. The first of the “big Hondas”, the CB450...

In 1962, Honda stunned the racing world by displaying its first 50cc-class works machine, the RC110. A commercially available model of the RC110 was also introduced at the same...

Off-road motorcycling exploded in popularity in the early 1960s, with many riders modifying existing designs into trail-ready bikes known as scramblers. In 1962, Honda introduced their factory-built light duty...

While touring Germany in 1956, Soichiro Honda and financial chief Takeo Fujisawa noticed the popularity of mopeds and small motorcycles. Fujisawa had been thinking about a new product that...