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.
A flat-twin engine is a two-cylinder internal combustion engine with the cylinders on opposite sides of the crankshaft. The most common type of flat-twin engine is the boxer-twin engine, where both pistons move inwards and outwards at the same time.
A straight-twin engine, also known as an inline-twin, vertical-twin, inline-2, or parallel-twin, is a two-cylinder piston engine whose cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft.
A straight-four engine is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft.
An H engine is a piston engine comprising two separate flat engines, most often geared to a common output shaft. The name "H engine" is due to the engine blocks resembling a letter "H" when viewed from the front. The most successful "H" engine in this form was the Napier Dagger and its derivatives. The name was also applied to engines of the same basic layout, but rotated through 90 degrees—most famously the Napier Sabre series. A variation on the "H" theme were the Fairey Prince (H-16) & Fairey P.24 Monarch, where the two engines retained separate drives, driving Contra-rotating propellers through separate concentric shafts. Although successful, they only existed in prototype form.
A straight-three engine is a three-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft.
Velocette is a range of motorcycles made by Veloce Ltd, in Hall Green, Birmingham, England. One of several motorcycle manufacturers in Birmingham, Velocette was a small, family-owned firm, selling almost as many hand-built motorcycles during its lifetime as the mass-produced machines of the giant BSA and Norton concerns. Renowned for the quality of its products, the company was "always in the picture" in international motorcycle racing from the mid-1920s until the 1950s, culminating in two World Championship titles and its legendary and still-unbeaten 24 hours at over 100 mph (161 km/h) record. Veloce, while small, was a great technical innovator and many of its patented designs are commonplace on motorcycles today, including the positive-stop foot shift and swinging arm rear suspension with hydraulic dampers. The business suffered a gradual commercial decline during the late 1960s, eventually closing in February 1971.
A U engine is a piston engine made up of two separate straight engines placed side-by-side and coupled to a shared output shaft. When viewed from the front, the engine block resembles the letter "U".
Balance shafts are used in piston engines to reduce vibration by cancelling out unbalanced dynamic forces. The counter balance shafts have eccentric weights and rotate in opposite direction to each other, which generates a net vertical force.
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.
The Chrysler XIV-2220 was an experimental 2,500 hp, 2,220 cubic inch liquid-cooled inverted-V-16 World War II aircraft engine. Although several aircraft designs had considered using it, by the time it was ready for use in 1945 the war was already over. Only a few engines were built by Chrysler during a program that started in 1940, and it retained its 'X' designation the entire time as the XIV-2220, later XI-2220. The IV-2220 is historically important as it was Chrysler's first hemi, a design that would re-appear in 1950s Chrysler performance automobiles, make drag racing headlines in the 1960s, and continue into the 2000s.
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.
The crossplane or cross-plane is a crankshaft design for piston engines with a 90° angle between the crank throws. The crossplane crankshaft is the most popular configuration used in V8 road cars.
A flat-eight engine, also called a horizontally-opposed eight, is an eight-cylinder piston engine with two banks of four inline cylinders, one on each side of a central crankshaft, 180° apart.
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.
Triumph Motorcycles Ltd is the largest UK-owned motorcycle manufacturer, established in 1983 by John Bloor after the original company Triumph Engineering went into receivership. The new company, initially called Bonneville Coventry Ltd, continued Triumph's lineage of motorcycle production since 1902. They have major manufacturing facilities in Thailand.
The Brough Superior Golden Dream was designed and built by George Brough in Nottingham, England, in 1938. With its distinctive gold finish, this was to be the ultimate Brough Superior but production was stopped by the outbreak of War in 1939.
The Brough Superior Austin Four was a limited-production motorcycle designed and manufactured by Brough Superior of Nottingham, UK in 1932. It was listed in the 1932 Brough Superior catalogue as the 'Straight Four' but it was commonly known as the Brough Superior Austin Four, or BS4, or '3-wheeled Brough'. The machine is unique in its design, being powered by a modified Austin 7 automobile engine and gearbox unit, from which a driveshaft emerges on the centre-line of the motor. Rather than design a new gearbox, George Brough had the inspiration to keep the central driveshaft, and use a pair of close-couple rear wheels driven by a central final drive box. This 3-wheeled design was legally considered a motorcycle as the wheel centres were within 24". The Brough Superior-Austin Four created a sensation when revealed at the 1931 Olympia Motorcycle Show.
The Yamaha XJ650 Maxim is a mid-size motorcycle by the Yamaha Motor Company introduced in 1980 as the Maxim I and produced through 1983. Yamaha designed the high-performance XJ650 as a brand-new four-cylinder with shaft drive, and built it specifically as a special cruiser. The XJ Maxim was the successor of the XS Special introduced in 1978.
