Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. is the motorcycle-manufacturing division of Italian company Ducati, headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company is directly owned by Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini, whose German parent company is Audi, itself owned by the Volkswagen Group.
Aprilia is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer founded immediately after World War II in Noale, Italy, by Alberto Beggio. The company started as a manufacturer of bicycles and moved on to manufacture scooters and small-capacity motorcycles. In more recent times Aprilia has produced large sportbikes such as the 1,000 cc V-twin RSV Mille and the V4 RSV4.
KTM AG is an Austrian motorcycle, bicycle and sports car manufacturer owned by Pierer Mobility AG & Indian manufacturer Bajaj Auto International Holdings BV. It was formed in 1992 but traces its foundation to as early as 1934. Today, KTM AG is the parent company of the KTM Group, consisting of a number of motorcycle brands.
Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. is a Japanese manufacturer of motorcycles, marine products such as boats and outboard motors, and other motorized products. The company was established in 1955 upon separation from Yamaha Corporation, and is headquartered in Iwata, Shizuoka, Japan. The company conducts development, production and marketing operations through 109 consolidated subsidiaries as of 2012.
Puch is a manufacturing company located in Graz, Austria. The company was founded in 1899 by the industrialist Johann Puch and produced automobiles, bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles. It was a subsidiary of the large Steyr-Daimler-Puch conglomerate.
MV Agusta is a motorcycle manufacturer founded by Count Domenico Agusta on 19 January 1945 as one of the branches of the Agusta aircraft company near Milan in Cascina Costa, Italy. The abbreviation MV stands for Meccanica (mechanics) Verghera, the hamlet where the first MVs were made. The modern headquarters and main production facilities are located in Varese, Italy on the shore of Lake Varese.
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."
Malaguti is an Italian bicycle, scooter and motorcycle company based in San Lazzaro di Savena, founded by Antonino Malaguti in 1930. Producing bicycles until 1958, they then entered the motorcycle market. Noted for their use of small engines in their bikes. In October 2011, Malaguti laid off its remaining employees in Bologna, Italy as the company eventually folded.
FB Mondial is a motorcycle manufacturer, founded in 1929, in Milan, Italy. They are best known for their domination of Motorcycle World Championships between 1949 and 1957. The firm produced some of the most advanced and successful Grand Prix road racers of the time, winning five rider and five manufacturer World Championships in that short period.
JAWA is a motorcycle and moped manufacturer founded in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1929 by František Janeček, who bought the motorcycle division of Wanderer. The name JAWA was established by concatenating the first letters of Janeček and Wanderer. In the past, especially in the 1950s, JAWA was one of the top motorcycle manufacturers and exported its 350 model into over 120 countries. The best known model was the 350 Pérák and in the 1970s the 350 Californian. It appeared in typical black and red coloring from California to New Zealand. After 1990 a significant loss of production occurred. A successor company was formed in 1997 in Týnec nad Sázavou, continuing the name as JAWA Moto.
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.
Garelli Motorcycles was an Italian moped and motorcycle manufacturer. It was founded in 1919 by Adalberto Garelli.
TVS Motor Company is an Indian multinational motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is the third largest motorcycle company in India with a revenue of over ₹20,000 crore (US$2.6 billion) in 2018–19. The company has an annual sales of three million units and an annual capacity of over four million vehicles. TVS Motor Company is also the second largest two-wheeler exporter in India with exports to over 60 countries.
Moto Morini is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer founded by Alfonso Morini in Bologna, in 1937.
The Ducati singles were single cylinder motorcycles, made by Ducati from 1950 to 1974. Chief Engineer Fabio Taglioni developed a desmodromic valve system in these years, a system that opens and closes the valves using the camshaft, without the need for valve springs. This valve system has become a trademark feature of Ducati motorcycles.
Clews Competition Machines (CCM) is a British motorcycle manufacturer based in Bolton, England. CCM was founded in 1971 by Alan Clews and gained notability for producing specialised BSA powered motocross machines. The company has produced a variety of motorcycle models over its history using a variety engine suppliers including; Rotax, Suzuki and Kymco.
Metalurgia Casal was the largest Portuguese motorcycle manufacturer, based in Aveiro. It was founded in 1964 with João Casal as the managing director and Robert Zipprich and other ex-Zundapp engineers as the technical managers. Its first products included agricultural machinery and two strokes' moped engines based on Zundapp ones. By 1967 it was producing complete motorcycles, the first one being a scooter, the S170 Carina - a copy of the Zundapp R50 - with a 50cc and 4 speed engine. Shortly after it rolled out its first mopeds, the K160, K161, K162 and K163 with two speeds, and the K181 with four speeds. Although most of its production were mopeds, it also produced 125cc bikes, namely the K260, K270 and K276 all, and it had an advanced plan for a 250cc, the K280. Its range included some 30 or more models, with automatic engines, 2 speed, 4 speed, 5 speed and 6 speed engines Even though its main market was, by far, the domestic market, it also exported some 10% of its production, mostly to the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. It also had a promising joint venture with Solo of Germany under which some models were sold in the German market under the Solo brand. Car production was also planned, but not realised. As the increased purchasing power in their home country Portugal, their most important market, slowed the sales of mopeds, bankruptcy was a fact in February 2000. In connection with this, unfortunately, parts of the company's archives were destroyed.
Husqvarna Motorcycles GmbH is a Swedish-origin Austrian company which designs, engineers, manufactures and distributes motocross, enduro, supermoto and street motorcycles.
Fantic Motor is an Italian manufacturer of motorcycles.
A sport moped is a moped that resembles a sport bike and often performs better than standard mopeds. They were created to circumvent UK legislation, called the "Sixteeners Laws", aimed at taking young motorcycle riders off the road. The new laws, introduced in 1971 by Conservative Party Minister for Transport John Peyton, forbade 16-year-olds from riding motorcycles of 250 cc (15 cu in) capacity, thus limiting them to 50 cc machines until they turned 17.
