American Sportbike with transverse, longitudinal crank v-twin ?

[Lucky]

Yep, that's it. Funny, they've been around for a long time and I never really paid much attention to them.

 

charlie

 

 

 

Here's one:

 

f

[charlie b]

I always wondered wht they looked like under all that plastic. Fuel tank is interesting.

 

Guess I should not be surprised at a 'naked' one. Saw a fellow who had dropped his new Gold Wing bring it into a Honda dealer. Looked like superficial damage. The four body panels on one side were going to cost him $9000! He happily shelled out the money. So, there might be some good bargains out there for dropped bikes with only body damage. Unfortunately not any V11's

[gstallons]

At those prices, all the plastic on the bike is worth $25k. INCREDIBLE. I thought this CF was expensive!

[Skeeve]

I saw a later Honda that looked like it had a V4 in the proper configuration. It had a lot of fairing around it so could not get a better look at it. Never saw one again so don't know if it was my imagination or not.

 

Honda ST1100 or ST1300.

 

700+ pounds of too-much-heat-for-a-liquid-cooled-bike. Oddly enough, complaints about excessive heat for the rider ended when Yamaha brought out their FJR1300, which then became the new bitch-queen for excessive heat in the moto rags...

 

Honda upped the displacement on the 1300 but still forgot to fix the problem w/ the fairing lowers being in the way of taller riders' knees, apparently!

 

I remember when the ST1100 was first on the sales floor back in '91? or so: I thought it was a beautiful big tourer and then I sat on it & realized that Honda botched it: tall seat height means tall riders, but no room for their knees mean no sales. Reliable bikes tho'; other than a few stator failures [chronic problem on Honda shafties for some reason], nobody ever seems to wear'em out like they do BMWs...

 

All the cops in my home town recently got new ST1300s to ride: I just about ran off the road when I spotted one! Not the brightest choice for in-town duties [Pasadena cops never get to take part in high-speed chases, poor guys! ], but I'm sure Honda gave'em a great deal just to move stock. Some Buell Ulysses would have made a better choice [mileage, maintenance & maneuverability] plus have given them the opportunity to have more fun taking it up ACH!

 

Stupid bean-counters never have any consideration for the real issues...

 

Still, not likely to find them riding Guzzis any time soon, unless Piaggio makes some big push to penetrate the LE market Stateside [which wouldn't be a bad idea; at least we wouldn't get the "Who makes that?" comment so much if more motor cops were riding Guzzis... ]

[hoytstaab]

I learned the original Indian company had its own transverse v-twin design, which appears to be the 1st of any motorcycle

 

I would like to get a hold of one of those.

 

See:

 

http://www.mcnews.com.au/ClassicsCustoms/I...n/Indian841.htm

 

http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/classics/bike.asp?id=72