A V-twin engine, also called a V2 engine, is a two-cylinder piston engine where the cylinders are arranged in a V configuration and share a common crankshaft.
A flat engine is a piston engine where the cylinders are located on either side of a central crankshaft. Flat engines are also known as horizontally opposed engines, however this is distinct from the less common opposed-piston engine design, whereby each cylinder has two pistons sharing a central combustion chamber.
Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel-drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longitudinal engine arrangement generally found in rear-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Coventry Victor was a British motorcycle and car manufacturer. Originally Morton & Weaver, a proprietary engine manufacturer in Hillfields, Coventry, founded in 1904, the company changed its name to Coventry Victor Motors in 1911. The company closed in 1971.
Singer Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturing business, originally a bicycle manufacturer founded as Singer & Co by George Singer, in 1874 in Coventry, England. Singer & Co's bicycle manufacture continued. From 1901 George Singer's Singer Motor Co made cars and commercial vehicles.
Brough Superior motorcycles, sidecars, and motor cars were made by George Brough in his Brough Superior works on Haydn Road in Nottingham, England, from 1919 to 1940. The motorcycles were dubbed the "Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles" by H. D. Teague of The Motor Cycle newspaper. Approximately 3048 motorcycles were made in the 21 years of production; around a third of that production still exists. T. E. Lawrence owned eight of these motorcycles and died from injuries sustained when he crashed number seven; the eighth was on order. Moving forward to 2008, vintage motorcycle enthusiast Mark Upham acquired the rights to the Brough Superior name. In 2013 he met motorcycle designer Thierry Henriette and asked him to design a new Brough Superior motorcycle. Three months later a prototype of a new SS100 was shown in Milan.
Brough Motorcycles were made by William E. Brough in Nottingham, England, from 1902 to 1926, after some earlier experimentation with motorised tricycles. The Brough Superior company was a separate company created by his son, George Brough.
A transverse engine is an engine mounted in a vehicle so that the engine's crankshaft axis is perpendicular to the direction of travel. Many modern front-wheel drive vehicles use this engine mounting configuration. Most rear-wheel drive vehicles use a longitudinal engine configuration, where the engine's crankshaft axis is parallel with the direction of travel, except for some rear-mid engine vehicles, which use a transverse engine and transaxle mounted in the rear instead of the front. Despite typically being used in light vehicles, it is not restricted to such designs and has also been used on armoured fighting vehicles to save interior space.
A motorcycle engine is an engine that powers a motorcycle. Motorcycle engines are typically two-stroke or four-stroke internal combustion engines, but other engine types, such as Wankels and electric motors, have been used.
Wooler was a British manufacturer of motorcycles and automobiles, founded by engineer John Wooler in 1911 based in Alperton, Middlesex. The company became known for its unconventional designs which included several fore-and-aft twins, a vertical camshaft single cylinder machine, a transverse-four beam engine, and a transverse flat four. Most machines possessed Wooler's enduring design features of a petrol tank which extended past the steering head.
Ariel Motorcycles was a British maker of bicycles and then motorcycles in Bournbrook, Birmingham. It was an innovator in British motorcycling, part of the Ariel marque. The company was sold to BSA in 1951 but the brand survived until 1967. Influential Ariel designers included Val Page and Edward Turner. The last motorcycle-type vehicle to carry the Ariel name was a short-lived three-wheel tilting moped in 1970.
Matchless Silver Hawk is a Bert Collier designed motorcycle produced by Matchless for 1931 and introduced at the 1930 Motorcycle Show at Olympia, London as their range-leading luxury model. It was one of two up-market four-cylinder machines introduced during the 1930 Show season from two manufacturers; the Silver Hawk whose production would last less than four years and the Ariel Square Four, whose production lasted until 1959. Other British manufacturers produced 4-cylinder machines in small quantities in the 1930s, including Brough Superior's Austin-engined BS4 and the prototype Golden Dream.
Motorcycle components and systems for a motorcycle are engineered, manufactured, and assembled in order to produce motorcycle models with the desired performance, aesthetics, and cost. The key components of modern motorcycles are presented below.
The Brough Superior SS 100 is a motorcycle which was designed and built by George Brough in Nottingham, England in 1924. Although every bike was designed to meet specific customer requirements—even the handlebars were individually shaped—sixty-nine SS100s were produced in 1925 and at £170 were advertised by Brough as the "Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles". The term was coined by a magazine road tester in his review of the bike, and Brough eventually obtained explicit permission to use it after a Rolls-Royce executive toured the Brough Superior factory. All bikes had a guarantee that they were capable of 100 mph (160 km/h).
The Austin Light Twelve-Six is a 14 tax horsepower car with a 1496 cc engine that was introduced by Austin in January 1931. It was named by Austin Light Twelve to separate it from the well-established Austin Twelve. The general public then dubbed the original Twelve Heavy Twelve but Austin never used that name. The Light Twelve-Six remained in production until 1936.
Humber Limited was a pioneering British motorcycle manufacturer. Humber produced the first practical motorcycle made in Britain by fitting one of their Humber bicycles with an E. J. Pennington two-horsepower motor in 1896.
Zenith Motorcycles was a British motorcycle and automobile manufacturer established in Finsbury Park, London in 1903, by W. G. Bowers. Automobile manufacture only lasted from 1905 to 1906. The first Zenith motorcycle was the 'BiCar' of 1903, based on Tooley's Bi-Car design, which was purchased by Zenith for its own production. The BiCar was a unique design with hub-center steering and a low-slung chassis with the engine centrally fixed.
Alfred Angas Scott (1875–1923) was a British motorcycle designer, inventor and founder of the Scott Motorcycle Company. A prolific inventor, he took out over 50 patents between 1897 and 1920, mostly concerning two-stroke engines and road vehicles. Scott was a keen potholer and the second president of the Gritstone club. In July 1923 Scott travelled back to Bradford in his open Scott Sociable wearing wet potholing clothes and contracted pneumonia from which he died.
The Advance Motor Manufacturing Company was a British motorcycle and engine manufacturer established in 1905. As well as supplying aircraft engines to the pioneering monoplane developers, Advance engines were also used by Captain Robert Scott to power Antarctic snow sleds. After the end of the Second World War the company was sold to Sheepbridge Engineering and became a motor supplies organisation.
The Triumph 6/1 is a motorcycle that was made by Triumph at their Coventry factory from 1934 to 1936. Designed by Val Page, the 6/1 was the first Triumph motorcycle to use a parallel-twin engine. A sidecar-equipped 6/1 won a silver medal in the 1933 International Six Days Trial and went on to win the Maudes Trophy for 1933. The 6/1 was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 600 in two years on the market.
