Early history of Harley-Davidson

William S. Harley, Arthur Davidson, Walter Davidson and William Davidson were the founder of Harley-Davidson.

Harley and Arthur Davidson were both of Milwaukee and childhood friends. In 1900 they began building sort of a kit single-cylinder engine.

They had it in a frame and running by 1903. The first production Harley had Harley’s modified DeDion engine, 26.8 cc displacements, a belt drive and a one gallon gas tank.

It held one quart of oil and had a hand pump to manually lubricate the engine.

When people saw the first Harley-Davidson motorcycle pass by on the road, they were more curious than impressed. To most people at that time, traveling around on one of these motorized bikes seemed dangerous, impractical and even inappropriate.

William Harley and Arthur Davidson were joined by Arthur’s brothers William A and Walter and in 1907 the firm was incorporated as Harley-Davidson.

In 1907, the factory size doubled and they hired on 18 more workers and by that time production tripled to 150 motorcycles.

By 1920 Harley-Davidson had become the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world, and by 1953 there were just two American motorcycle manufacturers left standing: Harley Davidson and Indian, based in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Early history of Harley-Davidson

Early history of Norton motorcycles

James Lansdowne Norton was born in 1869, the son of a Birmingham cabinet maker. At age 29 James Norton started Norton Manufacturing Company in 1898.

Initially, the company built frames for Clement-Garrard motorbicycles, powered by a French 160cc clip-on motor that made a whopping single horsepower at 1,100 rpm.

The Norton enterprise was also manufacturing components for the large number of new firms coming into the two wheel industry in 1902-1903 an in some cases even complete machines.

Norton set the pace early in the Isle of Man whir Rem Fowler won the twin-cylinder class of the first TT on a Norton in 1907.

In 1908, the 633cc side valve Big 4 was introduced with production continuing through World War II.

Unfortunately James Norton went into bankruptcy in 1913. He started the business again shortly after that with Bob Shelly and named the company Norton Motors Ltd.

In 1922, Norton produced their first OHV machine, the model 18, one of the quickest bikes around. James Norton died in 1925.

Early history of Norton motorcycles