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What companies in the past have made parallel twins? Norton, of course. I think all the majors made a twin at one time, but the only one that comes to mind immediately is the Yamaha XS650. I know of the Yamy because I considered buying one back in the day. I bought the XS850 triple instead.

Anything come to mind? Anyone? Anyone?

Cody

Hey Cody

Yamaha
TX 500
TRX 850

Kawasaki
K1, K2 -- changed to W1 etc up to W650
Ninja 250
Ninja 500
Vulcan 500 LTD
ER-6n (650cc)

Old Jap company
Meguro (1937 - 1964)
Used vertical twins (old brit patterns)

Honda
CB 400
CB 500

Suzuki (?)
GS 500E

That should start the ball rolling .....


.

And before the onslaught of the Japanese, other British firms made parallel twins in large and small numbers. BSA and Royal Enfield are the most famous of them, along with Norton, but there were also smaller manufacturers like AJS and Matchless plus others like Sunbeam. I suppose there's been hundreds of motorcycle makers who've built parallel twins, with most of the companies living a very short life. Many were the equivalent of Orange County Choppers...just assemblers who used engines made by other companies like Villiers. Before the Great Depression in the 1930's, there were hundreds of motorycle builders on each side of the Atlantic.

I believe the parallel twin motorcycle was invented by Peugeot around the time of WWI.

Derek,
I'm pretty sure correct that Peugeot was the first with the parallel twin.

BMW FS800 - Brand New

How about all the BSA's.

Damned near everyone.

What about the Honda CD 175, CD200, CB/CJ 250/350 etc. etc. and the original Japanese crib the Megura (now Kawasaki)650 - I think this was a copy of the BSA A7 but without the oil leaks and with indicators...

Jan

And dont forget Ariel of Selly Oak.....

Pretty much everyone in the UK except Velocette. In the late 70's, all of Japan.inc made a 400 twin. Pretty much the same engine with minor differences such as the direction the balance shaft rotated and the shape of the valve cover. Even Singer made a vetical twin, but they set it sideways and gave it a shaft drive.
Some of the small players in Germany and Austria such as Puch made 2 stroke vertical twins, mostly with a shared combustion chamber.
In the US, most twins were of the V sort. This was largely because the roads were total crap in the early days of motorcycling and the narrower configuration was a big advantage. I think Cushman made some vetical twins, but I doubt any were used on 2 wheelers.

Wait, there was at least one vertical twin HD! In '42, someone converted a knucklehead to steam using a parallel twin from a Winton car because he got the minimal gas rationing card. This bike found its way to a museum/bike shop in Arcadia CA when I worked in that area. I even got to touch it, but they wouldn't stoke up the boiler and let anyone ride it.

I think the shorter list (and harder to figure out) would be who didn't make a parallel twin at one time.

Indian used a Royal Enfield parallel twin in the '50s, just before they died.

"Sugar" the secret is out the bright NEW concept of the Classic motorcycle configuration leaked out!!!!!
Did HD not do parrallel twins in the early small engine days? ? ? I think they did.
Mike

Bill,

Actually Indian manufactured an inhouse(Springfield, MA) designed vertical twin and sold a very limited number of them along side their V-twins, just a few years before they ceased production in 1953. By the late 1940's, Indian management had seen the British brands starting to take a significant portion of their sales away and seeing the writing on the wall they knew they would have to update their line from the old flathead V-twins Chiefs and Scouts in order to compete with the British and Harley Davidson OHV engined motorcycles.

Unfortunately, the design was rushed into production and almost all of the vertical-twins had major reliability problems and with the tremendous amount of warranty work that had to be provided, it ultimately sullied their reputation and forced Indian into bankruptcy.

A few years after they shuttered their Springfield plant, the holding company which then owned the name "Indian Motorcycles", did import Royal Infields twins rebadged as Indians in a short-lived effort to revive the brand, but as you know that lasted only a few years with little sales also.

I read somewhere recently(however, I can't remember from which publication) that there was a last-ditch effort, sometime in the early 1950s, to use Vincent engines in Indians, but the companies involved could not reach an accord, so it never came to be.

I think that would have been an interesting combination, but of course it would have been a very expensive bike to purchase.


Cheers,
Dwight
(and gentlemen...don't forget that there was a Ducati vertical-twin....the Tornado, of the mid-to-late 1970s)

I had an Rd 350 Yamaha and a Yamaha 100 that were both twins.
Mad`

CZ,Jawa & MZ.

Hey Mad,

Had me an RD 350 also ('74 or '75, the old brain cannot remember which). I loved that little machine. Here's a pic of an RD that is very close to what I had (didn't even own a camera back then):


Had a friend help me modify it by boring the cylinders, change to stiffer reeds, add some spacers under those reeds, and different exhaust. That thing was just plain quick!! 750 Hondas were lunch and 650s were snacks!

The worst thing I remember about the RD was fouling plugs. Always carried a handful....

Phil,

I remember listening to the radio back in 1970 and 1971, to the live race coverage of the Daytona 200 when it was the preeminent motorcycle road race in the world. I was always amazed that those little RD350 Yamahas would keep up with the mighty 750 Triumph and BSA triples, the XR750s H/Ds, and the Honda CB750Rs, back then.

Dick Mann won both of those years, if you recall(in 1970 on the Honda 750 and in 1971 on a BSA triple) but I think it was Don Vesco on his 350 Yamaha that dogged him the whole way in both of those year's races.

You could see the end of the four-stroke motorcycle race era was about to come.(and co-incidentally, the end of the british m/c industry)

Dwight
(BTW...that's a beautiful pic of the RD)

Weren't MZ's singles? At least mine (TS250) was...or did they do a twin as well...

Answer to my last question...pre 1989, MZ was Motorradwerk Zschopau and manufactured single-cylinder two-stroke motorcycles, producing 80 000 machines a year. In 1989, after the re-unification of Germany, MZ was put under the control of Treuhandanstalt, a holding which was to privatise the company. In 1992, a private investor was found and MuZ (Motorrad und Zweiradwerk ) GmbH was born. This compamy made (still makes?) a 1000cc inclined parallel twin.

Jan

They still make these MZ's also a there is a SF (Streetfighter), and also a tour version.
http://www.motorbikestoday.com/reviews/Articles/mz1000sf_road_test.htm

Anybody mention Laverda ?