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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 famous single-cylinder four-stroke “Husky” engine (1922) and inevitable down-turns, by 1933 the Cushman family was no longer associated with the company. As it was dissolving, John

In 1940, Marcel Mennesson had a prototype built for a bicycle equipped with a motor on the front wheel. The 38cc engine was outfitted with a roller transmission, carburetor and tank, and mounted on the front 700-millimetre wheel. Due to the events of World War II, however, the Model 45 didn’t debut until 1946. Unlike

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 trail bike, the CT, or Cub Trail series. The recipe was simple: take the Cub’s engine and semi-automatic gearbox (no clutch) and place them in a

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 was the world’s first production dual-overhead cam bike. Paired with unusual torsion valve springs and other refinements, it was a technological tour de force that the

Production of the Valmobile “suitcase scooter” by the Hirano Motorcycle Company of Japan began in 1956, after the previous manufacturer Martin-Moulet struggled to find success for the Valmobile in its native France. In the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, Japan and the United States were going through a bit of scooter-mania, and Hirano used clever

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 World War II, and by the end of the war 75% of Hercules’s factories had been destroyed. German automotive parts company ZF Sachs purchased the company

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 were the first vehicles to be raced on board tracks.  (The tracks were usually oval in shape and the lengths varied).  The first motorcycle board track