The following is a list of motorcycle manufacturers worldwide, sorted by extant/extinct status and by country. These are producers whose motorcycles are available to the public, including both street legal as well as racetrack-only or off-road-only motorcycles. The list of current manufacturers does not include badge engineered bikes or motorcycle customisers, but the list of defunct manufactures may include some of these if they are well remembered for their historical significance.
Bold refers to premium Bikes.
Italic refers to EV Bikes.
Bold refers as Premium Bike
Italic refers as EV Bike
This is a list of companies that formerly produced and sold motorcycles available to the public, including both street and race/off-road motorcycles. It also includes some former motorcycle producers of noted historical significance but which would today be classified as badge engineered or customisers. It includes both companies that are defunct, those that still exist but no longer make motorcycles, and some that were acquired by other companies.
Benelli Q.J. is an Italian company, based in the city of Pesaro in the Marche region, that produces motorcycles and scooters.
Triumph Engineering Co Ltd was a British motorcycle manufacturing company, based originally in Coventry and then in Meriden. A new company, Triumph Motorcycles Ltd, based in Hinckley, gained the name rights after the end of the company in the 1980s and is now one of the world's major motorcycle manufacturers.
Royal Enfield was a brand name under which The Enfield Cycle Company Limited of Redditch, Worcestershire, England, sold motorcycles, bicycles, lawnmowers and stationary engines which it manufactured. Enfield Cycle Company also used the brand name "Enfield" without the "Royal".
Unit construction is the design of larger motorcycles where the engine and gearbox components share a single casing. This sometimes includes the design of automobile engines and was often loosely applied to motorcycles with rather different internal layouts such as the flat twin BMW models.
Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) was a British motorcycle manufacturer founded by the Collier brothers as a parent company for the Matchless and AJS motorcycle companies. It later absorbed Francis-Barnett, James, and Norton before incorporation into Norton-Villiers. Henry Herbert Collier founded Matchless as a cycle company in 1878. His sons Henry (Harry) and Charles (Charlie) joined him and the name was changed to H. Collier & Sons.
The history of the motorcycle begins in the second half of the 19th century. Motorcycles are descended from the "safety bicycle," a bicycle with front and rear wheels of the same size and a pedal crank mechanism to drive the rear wheel. Despite some early landmarks in its development, the motorcycle lacks a rigid pedigree that can be traced back to a single idea or machine. Instead, the idea seems to have occurred to numerous engineers and inventors around Europe at around the same time.
Douglas Lionel Hele was a pioneering British motorcycle engineer with Triumph and other firms: BSA, Douglas and Norton. He was born in Birmingham in 1919 and died in Hagley, Worcestershire on 2 November 2001.
London Motorcycle Museum displayed a range of over 150 classic and British motorcycles. It closed in October 2019, partly due to inability to meet the running costs.
The Dunstall Norton was a Norton motorcycle made by Paul Dunstall, a specialist tuner of the 1960s and early 1970s twins originally using some parts from Norton's Domiracer project when the Birmingham factory was closed in 1963. In 1966 Dunstall Motorcycles became a motorcycle manufacturer in its own right so that Dunstalls could compete in production races, and set a number of world records before sales of the Dunstall Nortons declined in the 1970s consistent with the demise of the British motor cycle industry and a corresponding rise in Japanese imports.
A scooter is a motorcycle with an underbone or step-through frame, a seat, a transmission that shifts without the operator having to operate a clutch lever, a platform for the rider's feet, and with a method of operation that emphasizes comfort and fuel economy. Elements of scooter design were present in some of the earliest motorcycles, and motor scooters have been made since at least 1914. More recently, scooters have evolved to include scooters exceeding 250cc classified as Maxi-scooters.
Brumana Pugliese S.A. was a Brazilian motorcycle and scooter manufacturer that ceased trading in 1982. Its predecessor companies were Lambretta do Brasil and Pasco Lambretta.
BSA motorcycles were made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA), which was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process.