Motorcyclepedia Museum IV: A Brief History of Motorcycles: Part 2

This 1923 Henderson Looks Like a Motorcycle

By 1930 or so motorcycles looked like motorcycles. All the major components were there-- and motorcycles wouldn't look very much different until the 1960s.

In post-WWI Japan Sochiro Honda (1906-1991) began to put small engines onto bicycle frames. By the 1950s he had formed the Honda corporation and had Honda's first motorcycle-- the Dream D-- on the drawing board:

Note the similarities to this 1923 Indian:

In the 1950s Honda began importing its small-displacement motorcycles into the the U.S. The 1960s saw a vertitable flood of Hondas, Kawasakis, Suzukis, Yamahas, and other Japanese brands on American roads.Millions were imported, and as the decade wore on, the engines got bigger. By the end of the decade other Japanese manufacturers had followed Honda's lead and were phasing out their two-stroke engines in favor of four-strokes.

Japanese stylists had their way with the imports, many of which were quite beautiful.

Here are some bikes from the early 1960s:

Now here are some bikes from the 1970s:

1969 saw the introduction of a revolutionary motorcycle-- the Honda CB750.

With its powerful 68 hp four-cylinder engine, the 750 is widely considered the world's first superbike. It was fast, and that called for big brakes. It was, so far as I know, the first motorcycle with a disc brake.

The owner of Crowell's Honda in Murfreesboro, Tennessee knew the 750 was a game changer. Carrying a full glass of water he took me to his showroom and started a Triumph Bonneville.

The Bonneville was a British motorcycles with a 650cc horizontal twin engine, known for its speed and sharp looks and notorious for leaky crankcases, bad Lucas electrics, and vibration. I could see there was no way that glass of water wouldn't immediately be bounced off the seat and onto the floor.

Then he started the 750, sat the glass on the seat, and revved the engine to 6000 rpm. The water sat rock-steady in the glass. Not a drop was spilled. It was that smooth.

Another game changer was the Gold Wing. Introduced in 1974, it was designed for touring. I t featured a 1000cc horizontally-opposed twin-cylinder water-cooled engine and shaft drive. The Gold Wing is still in production today.

Most Gold Wings were tricked out with fairings and luggage, but stripped, it was a good-looking motorcycle:

The Gold Wing's little brother was the CX500, which had a 500cc water-cooled twin engine and shaft drive. It also had tubeless tires-- something not possible with spoked wheels. There was a sporty version...

This is my 1980 CX500, which I regrettably had to sell

... and a full dresser known as the Silver Wing:

The sporty version two photos above was arguably the first of the category of motorcycles that came to be known as cruisers. Cruisers feature an upright or slightly laid-back riding position and hearken to the bikes of the 1940s and 1950s.

The 1960s also saw the birth of the chopper. Production motorcycles-- most often Harley-Davidsons and Triumphs-- were stripped of their factory fittings and custom hardware was made-- extended front forks, wild paint jobs, lots of chrome, ape-hanger bars, custom exhausts and seats, and souped-up engines.

Thanks to movies like Laslo Benedek's The Wild One (1953) and Roger Corman's Wild Angels (1966), choppers became associated with outlaw bikers and  the public developed a distaste for motorcycles.

Of course the real outlaw bikers played their part as well.

There's so much more to motorcycle history, of course-- factory road racing, dirt bikes, Italian and German motorcycles-- but I've pretty much gone over the history of the bikes at the museum. I'm stopping here.