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A moped is a type of small motorcycle with bicycle pedals, generally having a less stringent licensing requirement than full motorcycles or automobiles. Mopeds typically travel only a bit faster than bicycles on public roads, and possess both a motorcycle engine and pedals for propulsion. Mopeds are distinguished from scooters in that the latter tend to be more powerful and subject to more regulation.
Piaggio & C. SpA is an Italian motor vehicle manufacturer, which produces a range of two-wheeled motor vehicles and compact commercial vehicles under seven brands: Piaggio, Vespa, Gilera, Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Derbi, and Scarabeo. Its corporate headquarters are located in Pontedera, Italy. The company was founded by Rinaldo Piaggio in 1884, initially producing locomotives and railway carriages.
Engine displacement is the measure of the cylinder volume swept by all of the pistons of a piston engine, excluding the combustion chambers. It is commonly used as an expression of an engine's size, and by extension as a loose indicator of the power an engine might be capable of producing and the amount of fuel it should be expected to consume. For this reason displacement is one of the measures often used in advertising, as well as regulating, motor vehicles.
Zündapp was a major German motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1917 in Nuremberg by Fritz Neumeyer, together with the Friedrich Krupp AG and the machine tool manufacturer Thiel under the name "Zünder- und Apparatebau G.m.b.H." as a producer of detonators. In 1919, as the demand for weapons parts declined after World War I, Neumeyer became the sole proprietor of the company, and two years later he diversified into the construction of motorcycles.
Motobécane was a French manufacturer of bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, and other small vehicles, established in 1923. "Motobécane" is a compound of "moto", short for motorcycle; "bécane" is slang for "bike."
Syarikat Motosikal dan Enjin Nasional Sdn. Bhd, or known as Modenas for short is a Malaysian national motorcycle company producing various small motorcycle models below 400cc targeted for local market and export. The company's headquarters and factory are located at the small town of Gurun, Kedah, Malaysia.
There are many systems for classifying types of motorcycles, describing how the motorcycles are put to use, or the designer's intent, or some combination of the two. Six main categories are widely recognized: cruiser, sport, touring, standard, dual-purpose, and dirt bike. Sometimes sport touring motorcycles are recognized as a seventh category. Strong lines are sometimes drawn between motorcycles and their smaller cousins, mopeds, scooters, and underbones, but other classification schemes include these as types of motorcycles.
A motorized bicycle is a bicycle with an attached motor or engine and transmission used either to power the vehicle unassisted, or to assist with pedalling. Since it always retains both pedals and a discrete connected drive for rider-powered propulsion, the motorised bicycle is in technical terms a true bicycle, albeit a power-assisted one. However, for purposes of governmental licensing and registration requirements, the type may be legally defined as a motor vehicle, motorbike, moped, or a separate class of hybrid vehicle.
Derbi is a manufacturer of motorcycles, scooters, mopeds and recreational all-terrain vehicles produced by Nacional Motor S.A.U., a Spanish subsidiary of Piaggio & Co. SpA.
Simson was a German company which produced firearms, automobiles, bicycles and motorcycles, and mopeds. Under the Third Reich, the factory was taken from the Jewish Simson family, and was renamed several times under Nazi and later Communist control. The Simson name was reintroduced as a brand name for mopeds produced at the factory in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Simson mopeds were then produced in Suhl (Germany) until 2002.
The Honda Express or Honda NC50 is a scooter made by Honda between 1977 and 1983. Variants include the Express, Express II, Express SR and Urban Express. All versions of the Express line are powered by an air-cooled 49 cc (3.0 cu in) two-stroke engine.
An underbone is a type of motorcycle that uses structural tube framing with an overlay of plastic or non-structural body panels and contrasts with monocoque or unibody designs where pressed steel serves both as the vehicle's structure and bodywork. Outside Asia, the term underbone is commonly misunderstood to refer to any lightweight motorcycle that uses the construction type, known colloquially as step-throughs, mopeds or scooters.
Metalurgia Casal was the largest Portuguese motorcycle manufacturer, based in Aveiro. It was founded in 1953 and its first products included agricultural engines. Business leader João Casal met representatives of Zündapp at a trade fair in Hanover in the early 1960s, and then started to build mopeds with Zündapp engines. From 1966 he made his own engine, the Casal engine, which is a modified copy of the Zündapp, to be built in many variants. The first all-Casal model was the four speed 50 cc scooter Casal S170 Carina. Casal expanded the production to ordinary mopeds and motorcycles. The first was called K181. In the early-1970s Casal began to export their products, for example to the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Car production was also planned, but not realised. As the increased purchasing power in their home country Portugal, their most important market, slowed down the sales of mopeds, bankruptcy was a fact in February 2000. In connection with this, unfortunately, parts of the company's archives were destroyed. Today it operates as a Suzuki representative in Portugal.
The Yamaha Nouvo is a CVT underbone manufactured by Yamaha Motor. It was introduced in April 2002 for Southeast Asia markets and In 2004, Brazil, where it was renamed the Yamaha Neo. Nouvo is from the French word Nouveau, which means new or fashionable.
Yamaha Lagenda is a series of underbone motorcycle produced by Yamaha for the Southeast Asian market. It was introduced for the 2000 model year replacing the SRX 100. A more performance-oriented version of the Lagenda is marketed as ZR.
Hercules was a brand of bicycle and motorcycle manufactured in Germany.
Victoria was a bicycle manufacturer in Nürnberg, Germany that made motorcycles from about 1901 until 1966. It should not be confused with a lesser-known, unrelated Victoria Motorcycle Company in Glasgow, Scotland that made motorcycles between 1902 and 1928.
Hero Motors is a former moped and scooter manufacturer based in Delhi, India. It is a part of multinational company Hero Group, which also currently owns Hero Motocorp and Hero Cycles, among others. Hero Motors was started in the 1960s to manufacture 50 cc two-stroke mopeds but gradually diversified into making larger mopeds, mokicks and scooters in the 1980s and the 1990s. Noteworthy collaborators and technical partners were Puch of Austria and Malaguti of Italy.
A scooter or motor scooter is a type of motorcycle with a step-through frame and a platform for the rider's feet. Elements of scooter design were present in some of the earliest motorcycles, and scooters have been made since at least 1914. Scooter development continued in Europe and the United States between the World Wars.
References
- ↑ Erwin Tragatsch; Ash, Kevin. The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Motorcycles, Quantum Publishing, London, 2000 ISBN 1-86160-342-8
