NS Motorcycle

NS Motorcycle by Narazo Shimazu
	An Early Triumph Motorcycle which provided the type of frame used by Narazo Shimazu to build the first Japanese motorcycle
Manufacturer	NMC
Parent company	Narazo Shimazu, Tankin
Production	Approximately 20 units
Successor	Arrow First
Class	Standard
Engine	air-cooled, 1-cylinder, 4-stroke
Frame type	Triumph(UK)
Suspension	Spring Front, None Rear

Last updated April 26, 2019

The NS motorcycle, made by Narazo Shimazu in 1909, was the first motorcycle to be designed, built and sold in Japan. Shimazu created the Nihon Motorcycle Company (NMC) to manufacture the NS. In 1926 he then produced another new motorcycle design, the Arrow First. The earliest motorcycle that the Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan (in Japanese) includes on its list of the 240 Landmarks of Japanese Automotive Technology is the 1909 NS.^[1]^[2]

A motorcycle, often called a bike, motorbike, or cycle, is a two- or three-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long distance travel, commuting, cruising, sport including racing, and off-road riding. Motorcycling is riding a motorcycle and related social activity such as joining a motorcycle club and attending motorcycle rallies.

Narazo Shimazu (1888–1973) founded Shimazu Motor Research that built the NS Motorcycle.

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.

Nihon Motorcycle Company

In 1908 Narazo Shimazu created his first two-stroke engine, a 400 cc single-cylinder, and used it to propel a bicycle. In 1909 he produced his first four-stroke engine as well as a motorcycle frame to go with it. This is generally thought to be the first motorcycle made in Japan. Shimazu produced more than 20 of his NS motorcycles at Nihon Motorcycle Company (NMC) and later produced more than 700 Arrow First motorcycles at Japan Motors Manufacturing.^[3]^[4]

Two-stroke engine internal combustion engine

A two-strokeengine is a type of internal combustion engine which completes a power cycle with two strokes of the piston during only one crankshaft revolution. This is in contrast to a "four-stroke engine", which requires four strokes of the piston to complete a power cycle during two crankshaft revolutions. In a two-stroke engine, the end of the combustion stroke and the beginning of the compression stroke happen simultaneously, with the intake and exhaust functions occurring at the same time.

A four-strokeengine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either direction. The four separate strokes are termed:

Intake: Also known as induction or suction. This stroke of the piston begins at top dead center (T.D.C.) and ends at bottom dead center (B.D.C.). In this stroke the intake valve must be in the open position while the piston pulls an air-fuel mixture into the cylinder by producing vacuum pressure into the cylinder through its downward motion. The piston is moving down as air is being sucked in by the downward motion against the piston.
Compression: This stroke begins at B.D.C, or just at the end of the suction stroke, and ends at T.D.C. In this stroke the piston compresses the air-fuel mixture in preparation for ignition during the power stroke (below). Both the intake and exhaust valves are closed during this stage.
Combustion: Also known as power or ignition. This is the start of the second revolution of the four stroke cycle. At this point the crankshaft has completed a full 360 degree revolution. While the piston is at T.D.C. the compressed air-fuel mixture is ignited by a spark plug or by heat generated by high compression, forcefully returning the piston to B.D.C. This stroke produces mechanical work from the engine to turn the crankshaft.
Exhaust: Also known as outlet. During the exhaust stroke, the piston, once again, returns from B.D.C. to T.D.C. while the exhaust valve is open. This action expels the spent air-fuel mixture through the exhaust valve.

Influences

On January 19, 1896, the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller Motorrad (from Germany) was put on display with a trial run in Tokyo and was given the name of Petroleum Bicycle (very similar to the name of the Petroleum Reitwagen which was developed by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Germany in 1885, which was well known in Japan at this time).^[2] The H&W Motorrad had been imported by Jumonji Nobosuke co-owner of the Jumonji Trading Company.

The Hildebrand & Wolfmüller was the world's first production motorcycle. Heinrich and Wilhelm Hildebrand were steam-engine engineers before they teamed up with Alois Wolfmüller to produce their internal combustion Motorrad in Munich in 1894.

The Daimler Petroleum Reitwagen or Einspur was a motor vehicle made by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1885. It is widely recognized as the first motorcycle. Daimler is often called "the father of the motorcycle" for this invention. Even when the three steam powered two wheelers that preceded the Reitwagen, the Michaux-Perreaux and Roper of 1867–1869, and the 1884 Copeland, are considered motorcycles, it remains nonetheless the first petrol internal combustion motorcycle, and the forerunner of all vehicles, land, sea and air, that use its overwhelmingly popular engine type.

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf, in what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development. He invented the high-speed liquid petroleum fueled engine.

By 1901, the first American-made motorcycles began to appear, one of which was the Thomas Auto-Bi. It used a De Dion-Bouton 200 cc capacity engine developing 2.25 hp. In April 1902, the California motorcycle from the USA was advertised but may not have arrived yet. Also possible by then was the arrival of the US made Orient-Aster motorcycle.^[5]

The Auto-Bi was an early motorcycle made by the Thomas Motor Company in Buffalo, New York. According to many sources, it was the first motorcycle widely available for sale in the United States.

De Dion-Bouton was a French automobile manufacturer and railcar manufacturer operating from 1883 to 1953. The company was founded by the Marquis Jules-Albert de Dion, Georges Bouton, and Bouton's brother-in-law Charles Trépardoux.

The California Motor Company was founded in San Francisco to produce the motorcycle created by Roy C. Marks formerly of Toledo, Ohio. The 1896 Marks Motorcycle was the first motorcycle made in the United States.

Two Mitchells, which were very similar to the E.R. Thomas Auto-Bi, were imported in 1903.^[6] These motorcycle had De Dion-Bouton's air-cooled four-cycle engines of 347 cc. The frame was 23 inches and the machine weighed 55 kg (121 lb). Top speed was listed as 55 km/h (34 mph). The Mitchell-Lewis Motor Company had been founded in 1900.^[7]

History

In 1903, his father bought Narazo Shimazu a bicycle. That same year he was fascinated by the news of the motorcycle. He went to Tokyo for races that had featured foreign owned Thomas (USA) and Gladiator (French) made motorcycles.

In 1908 at the age of 20 Shimazu established the Shimazu Motor Research Institute. In 1908 Shimazu created a two-cycle motorcycle engine of 400 cc capacity and by December he had fit this engine into a bicycle frame he had purchased for that purpose. In 1909 he completed the construction of a four-cycle engine of his own design, and built a frame by reusing material from old bicycles. This was the first motorcycle manufactured in Japan, and Shimazu built a total of twenty of these, which he put his initials "NS" on. Customers were disappointed that the motorcycles he made often broke under their own weight while traveling on the primitive roads of that era.^[2]^[8]

In 1926 Shimazu completed a new motorcycle design called the Arrow First, and promoted it by taking four of the new motorcycles on a cross-country journey from Kagoshima to Tokyo. Later in the year Shimazu went into bankruptcy, but then helped found a new company, Japan Motors Manufacturing, in Osaka and worked to improve the Arrow First. The new company produced a motorcycle with an air-cooled four-cycle side valve design engine of 250 cc capacity and a two-speed transmission. Production reached 50 to 60 machines a month and eventually totaled over 700 machines in three years.^[2]

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References

↑ "NS Motorcycle". 240 Landmarks of Japanese Automotive Technology. Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc. Retrieved 11 August 2013. However, no actual example exists any longer, and only a documentary record remains.
1 2 3 4 Alexander, Jeffrey W. (2008). Japan’s motorcycle wars : an industry history (PDF). Vancouver: UBC Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-1453-9 . Retrieved 11 August 2013. Shimazu Narazo ̄’s testimony speaks to the fluidity of Japan’s earliest efforts at engine production.
↑ DEMIZU Tsutomu (October 2010). 国産二輪車の誕生から100年、最強の二輪車国となって50年 : 先駆者・島津楢蔵と戦後二輪車のイノベーション [A century old Home-manufactured Motorcycle in Japan and A half century old Japanese Strongest Motorcycle Industry : Narazo Shimazu, the Pioneer of Motorization, and Innovation of Motorcycle Technology from 1950's to 1960's]. Osaka Sangyo University journal of business administration (in Japanese). 12 (1): 1–31. Retrieved 12 August 2013. Few people knows the fact that the first home-manufactured motorcycle with gasoline engine was produced by Narazo Shimazu in 1909.
↑ Nishino, Ryôta (Fall 2012). "Book Review of Japan's Motorcycle Wars". International Journal of Motorcycle Studies. 8 (2). Retrieved 12 August 2013. Amongst several individuals in this chapter, we meet Shimazu Narazô, the founder of the Miyata Manufacturing Company.
↑ Kikuo Iwatate (July 7, 1995). "Thomas Auto-Bi in Japan 1901 Text and Photographs" (in Japanese). Archived from the original on May 2, 2009.
↑ Six things you didn't know about the early Japanese motorcycle industry, Mitchell Motorcycles Imported into Japan 1903.
↑ Mitchell-Lewis Motor Company, Mitchell Motor Company founded 1900.
↑ Motorcycle: evolution, design, passion by Mick Walker