ODD-BALL ENGINES
Longitudinal crank V-twins, like so many Moto Guzzis and Honda CX ‘Plastic Maggots’, enjoy good cooling like a boxer-twin, but with improved cornering clearance. But they’re still a long engine and the location of the intake can make themwide right were the rider’s knees are.
BMW famously canted the longitudinal K-series engines over on their sides, keeping the prodigious weight of this inline-four as low as possible, Triumph were more concerned about aesthetics with the Rocket-3 three though. They left the cruiser’s huge, 2300cc longitudinal inline-three upright in the chassis. Possibly confident that if anyone complained about the Rocket’s handling, they would just send Kevin Carmichael round to pull vertical wheelies up their street on one.
Kawasaki have dabbled with odd engines here and there. The 1979 six-cylinder Z1300, oddly never captured the public’s imagination like Honda’s CBX-6 did. Both now gone, but not completely forgotten like Benelli’s Sei 750 and 900 inline-sixes are. Back in the 70s, Kawasaki enjoyed Grand Prix racing success with the oddball engined KR250 and 350 two-stroke twins. These longitudinal ‘tandem’ twins proved very effective in the hands of Kork Ballington and Anton Mang.
Ironically, modern Moto Guzzis are renowned for their somewhat outmoded V-twins. But 60 years ago, they were regarded as probably the most innovative of all the bike makers. While the British Grand teams were filling the back of grids with single cylinder thumpers, Moto Guzzi riders were clipping along at 170mph on 500cc, 12,000rpmV8s.