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Royal Enfield Story
Royal Bullet
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Royal Enfield 1890-
It took more than ten years for Royale Enfield to establish starting in the last tenth years of 18 hundred. All was ended in bankruptcy 1907. This is one way for other companies to procure something cheap which match the buyers own interests. This was also done by Alldays and Onions. This is a name that indicate an import company. 1910 Royal started to produce cycles with, as most did, an imported engine. In this case Motosacoche and later JAP-motors. WWI brought of course side car models with a Vickers machine gun mounted. See links. Time between wars was a consolidation period and several model were for sale. The time for depression in the 30th showed of course a declining sale although Enfield had reserves to handle this period. Just like BSA during the 50th Royal had a cheap 2-stroke 150 cc bike. But mostly they produced 350-500 cc bikes. For WWII Enfield produced a military machine and also a lightweight model which could follow the paratroopers in their gliders. After war shows both up and downs. The most known model was the Bullet. This bike was later sold to Indian army and in this way it was preserved to the motorcycle world as a retro machine. Today you can get a newly manufactured Royal Enfield to be bought all over the world. Note that it is named only Enfield because India could not accept the name Royal.

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Harley Davidsson history
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Harley Davidsson 1903 -
1953 it was on the way to be a catastrophe for HD when Norton was the name on all lips at Daytona Show. HD could not accept this so the gave their test driver, Paul Goldsmith, order to bring back record from Norton, to drive again with a 37 hp bike and raised the record for highest speed with 42 km/h. HD was though created long before by the 2 mates William Harley and Arthur Davidson. They started to produce motorcycles in Milwaukee. The two men were a good combination and already after some years they had developed a V-twin, a layout that should remain till today. They understood that in order to sell they must have several resellers and they created that. Already 1912 they had over 200 in America. The models replace each other but engine type and layout were the same. To get the name known they joined all types of competitions in America. Like dirt track and hill Climb. At these types of tracks the English bikes could not compete. There only fighter was Indian, but this mark was ceased 1953. The main engine was designed 1926 and was still in production till 1972. American Machinery Foundry bought the company 1969 and it came into finance difficulties because of the US Tariff Commission. The company went down on number of employees and become in conflict with the labors. The quality fell drastically and the cycle got the nickname "Hardly ablesome". AMF sold 1981 and HD got its good reputation back. New models were developed and with background of nostalgia HD can sell cycles with a much higher price than the Japanese bikes and yet they have full time jo

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Boss Hoss Sweden
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All models
Private Ariel site
Ariel history
Ariel Owner Club
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Ariel 1902-1970
One of the most successful marks in England. In the beginning of mc history the development went ahead like stepping in stairs. For Ariel it started with bicycles 1870. At that time James Starley invented the wire spoke wheel. This was a necessary invention for motorcycle progress. Benz used it on his first 3 wheeler 1886. Next step was the invention of rubber tire which hadn't go applicability until 1898. The wire spoke wheel was produce by Starley's company, which later became Ariel. Their first motor bicycle came 1901 as a three wheeler with DeDion engine. Ariel went of course bankruptcy as all other firms, but was saved by Charles Sangster. He got Ariel on feet again with a 2 stroke motor, 3 geared box and kick start. Charles son Jack took over and continued with Jap engines until a famous designer named Val Page was employed. He brought with him a concept for a four cylinder engine which was called Square four. This type was kept together with twins as far as to the end of 1970 when discontinuing was inevitable in spite of a possibly contract for the English defence. Ariel got constructions from BSA who had taken it as war booty. With these Ariel made their models Arrow and Leader.

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Huskvarna 1903 -
Husqvarna 1000 cc almost identical to a Indian or HD, technically from the 30th. The company started to sell bicycles and later they put in a small engine. Already 1920 they had their own 550 motor and later a 1000cc. With this they went into competitions. It was a success mostly due to the brilliant designer Folke Mannerstedt. Huskvarna won several World Championships. During the 30th they brought in line with what people wanted. Cheap 2- stroke bikes were sold. With successful models of these types Huskvarna managed till end of 50th. With the help of world known drivers like Bill Nilsson, Håkan Carlqvist and Torsten Hallman Huskvarna became a Cross machine with a high reputation. The bad luck for Huskvarna was that they had an extremely wide production program and among these product they had freezers. Eletrolux was also a freezer producer and had to invest overflow money. Huskvarna was bought and all products that didn't suit Electrolux were sold. The motorcycle part was bought by Cagiva in Italy 1986. Sorry to say all these kind of fusions are leading to that the mark disappears from market some time later. In this case Huskvarna, as a company, ended all production and lots of good engineers and workers went out of job. The end result of the fusion with Electrolux, became only a short time higher book-keeping finances for Electrolux. For some time Huskvarna only produced freezers and alike. The best ad at that time was "Do as Electrolux buy Huskvarna". Several of the designers and drivers started their own production. Husaberg! They had difficulties with money and had big problems to economically fight the Japanese dragoons. Today in the honorable workshops of Huskvarna city it is only a very nice museum. Pity, Sweden might have had a mc producer with a high standard.

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CD:s for different Husqvarna mc
Husqvarna fabriks museum
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Life of Soichiro
Honda Company
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Honda 1849 -
Soichiro Honda, 1906-1991. He worked at home in his father's garage for bicycles and motorcycles. He realized, after the WWII, that people needed transportation vehicles and bought one stock of surplus mc engines. With these he built his first mc 1947 and called it Type A. (Bugatti called his first car for Type 1). 1948 he formed Honda Motor Company. When he got his partner Fujisawa, who also had the knowledge how to handle finances, they succeeded to roll the company through the difficult years after the war. In the middle of the 1950th the company started to grow and late 1959 they had a good grip of the market. He realized that big selling was due to success on the competition tracks and he made that. 1958 he put out an enormous seller, a moped with 50 cc engine. Just what Asia needed. 100000 was manufactured a month!! 1968 the CB750 four was announced. This was a mc with several new things like electric starter and disk brakes. Now Honda was controlling the market and produced one after the other several hits. Very much depending of that he never let a bad construction leave the works. He never got a bad reputation. This Honda 750 four in Surahammar MC museum is a motorcycle that made the world astonished and did completely outclass the English mc industry.

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Indian history
Hall of Fame
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Indian 1901-1953
There were three mates that came together. Hendee, Hedström and Henshaw. This was the necessary mix of persons to start with engine driven cycles. They wanted to see what such a thing was good for. They got together. Hendee wanted to build, Hedström designing and Henshaw was a helper. The three was happy with the design and started to take orders before it was on wheels. This happened in Springfield 1901. The selling went on good. Perhaps in America in those days everything were able to sell and specially motor vehicles. For a long time they ordered engines from Thor factory, but soon they realized that there were more money in manufacturing if they had their own engine. This happened 1907 when the V-twin was announced. The development went on and soon the front wheel had a plate spring. The competition team pushed everything forward. Electric starter and also electric light came before WWII. Indian should become the only bike mark that could give Harley Davidsson a match as far as up to 1953. Despite many attempts, with joining of Royale Enfield, Vincent and Matchless, to start again there were not any continued existence. The Indian mark is so loved by people that production of parts has been started for all models. Buying an old Indian is no spare part problem.

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Henderson history
Henderson Wikipedia
Henderson photos
William Henderson
ACE Motorcycles
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William Henderson was one of the brothers whose father was vice President in Winton Motor Car Company. One of Packard brothers bought a Winton Stanhope from which Packard learned to build cars. William got his education here and became interested in motorcycles. His father was not pleased with this because he found that it was no money in motorcycles. Despite this William got money from his father to start his company Henderson & Co. Here he designed his 4 cylinder engine and it was mounted into a mc frame. The production was modest and when his design became known he realized that he needed more money to get the production resources. Therefore he sold his motorcycle concept to Excelsior in Chigago. Here William became chief engine. In the end of 1918 the brothers got tired on Excelsior and instead started their own firm ACE in Philadelphia. Here he built a new four cylinder engine. This one was not allowed to have any part alike his old engine.  It was good success and the future looked good. . Unfortunately William died in a motorcycle accident when a car hit him  test driving a new cycle 1922. This was very ill-timed when a new cycle was on the way to be launched. Now it was shown how important William was for the firm and it was declining.  At last there was nothing more to be done than to sell. Indian bougt the ACE license 1926. The motorcycle was now built under the name of Indian up to 1942.

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