HOREX REGINA
The cooking 350 single ruled the UK markets in the early 1950s, and were common in Europe. Alan Cathcart samples one of the best sellers…
The cooking 350 single ruled the UK markets in the early 1950s, and were common in Europe. Alan Cathcart samples one of the best sellers…
Horex was Germany’s leading manufacturer for almost 50 years either side of WW2, and was in many ways comparable to Britain’s older Matchless marque in terms of product and marketplace positioning, as well as in its road racing involvement. But, curiously, it’s little known outside Germany, despite its products being exported to as many as 65 different countries during the 1950s, though not including the UK. That’s despite its wide range of models having an undeniably British air about them in terms of design, and even styling.
Located in Bad Homburg, north of Frankfurt, Horex was founded in 1923 by Fritz Kleeman, 22, whose father Friedrich owned the Rex glassware company, a manufacturer of preservative jars based there, and was also the main shareholder in the nearby engine manufacturer Motorenfabrik Oberursel. This firm had formerly supplied engines to power the Fokker fighter aircraft used by Germany’s air squadrons in WW1, including the famous Dr.1 triplane in which the ‘Red Baron’, Manfred von Richthofen, gained his final 19 victories out of a total of 80, and in which he was killed on April 21, 1918.
Post-war, Oberursel developed a range of proprietary engines under the Columbus name, and Fritz Kleeman, an aspiring motorcycle racer, built a bike using a 250cc ohv Columbus
engine with a 3-speed hand-change gearbox, and a tubular steel frame made by the Stein company. To name it, he conflated Homburg and Rex to create the Horex brand name, and put the result into production to help satisfy the growing demand for personal transportation in post-war Germany.
The model’s sales success was such that in 1925 Horex and Columbus merged, and the joint company went on to develop a bestselling range of ohv and sidevalve singles from 250cc up to 600cc. In the 1930s Horex’s gifted designer Hermann Reeb produced a series of innovative designs which powered the marque to the top of the German sales charts, with a full model range running all the way from the 63cc Ghom two-stroke clip-on motor for bicycles, through 198, 298, 346, 498 and 598cc capacities, up to 980cc models. Thanks to this, Horex was by some distance Germany’s No.1 at the outbreak of WW2, its best-selling and most profitable marque, outstripping BMW which concentrated on more expensive, larger capacity models – and DKW and others, which focused on lightweight or midsized machines.
Horex promoted its products through success in road racing as well as in long distance trials, with company boss and team leader Fritz Kleemann finishing third in the firstever bike race on the new Nürburgring circuit in 1927 on his ohv 500cc Horex single bored out to 675cc, defeating the works Norton and New Imperial teams in the process. British ace Tommy Bullus came close to winning the 1929 German GP there on his 500cc ohv Horex, only to be denied by an unlucky last lap retirement. On three wheels, Karl Braun rode his outfit powered by a supercharged 980cc Horex sohc parallel twin motor to the 1935 German Sidecar title, and these racing successes duly boosted sales, while the company’s Columbus engines were also sold to other German marques like Victoria, AWD and Tornax.
In 1933 – in the depths of the Depression, but just as Hitler came to power – Horex introduced its first two twin-cylinder models, the 598cc S6 and 796cc S8 parallel twins, each with a single overhead camshaft driven by a chain running up the right side of the cylinders. These were the prototypes of so many later such engines made by others up to today, and appeared some four years before Edward Turner invented the archetype British parallel twin in creating the Triumph Speed Twin – a mere pushrod ohv design, at that!
WW2 interrupted Horex civilian motorcycle production, but thanks to good relations established by the Kleeman family with the American occupying forces, and the fact that, remarkably for a facility building aircraft engines as well as motorcycles, its Bad Homburg factory was almost unscathed by bombing, Horex was able to resume volume production quicker than any other West German bike manufacturer. It was also the first to be granted permission, as was then needed, to build a model larger than 250cc in capacity, a permission denied its rivals, including BMW, until 1950. This allowed Horex to introduce the ultra-successful 342cc ohv Regina single in 1949. This machine, with its torquey longstroke 69x91.5mm motor, became West Germany’s best-selling bike in the early 50s, with 18,600 examples sold in 1953 alone. Many went to government departments, as well as the police, but 25% of total Horex production was now exported, to 65 different countries around the globe.
One person seemingly impressed with the Regina was Soichiro Honda, who visited the Horex factory (as well as NSU) in 1953. The Horex
influence is clearly evident in the Honda SA250 Dream of 1955 and the ME250 which debuted two years later, although the Horex ohv engine format was replaced on both models by Honda’s soon-familiar chain-driven overhead camshaft layout. A racing version of the ohv Regina appeared in 1950, but it struggled against rival purpose-built overhead cam racers, which convinced Horex management to introduce an all-new 500cc parallel twin in 1951, named the Imperator. Claimed to produce 30bhp, this was fitted with a central chain-driven sohc, no longer offset to the right – a format which the Japanese duly copied in the following decade.
The roadster version which appeared the following year only reached production in 400cc guise, though a twin-cam version of the Imperator 500GP racer appeared in 1952. It won first time out at Hockenheim, although this promise was not fulfilled, so it was completely redesigned for the 53 season, in which it again failed to make an impression. Meantime, ace German rider/tuner Roland Schnell built semi-works 250/350cc twincam Horex singles, which he raced very successfully using his own copy of the Norton Featherbed frame.
In 1954 Horex factory rider Georg Braun won the 250cc Saar GP at St. Wendel, then finished second on his 500cc single at the Nürburgring to Ray Amm’s works Norton Manx, defeating the entire BMW works team of Rennsport flat twins to do so. Braun also finished sixth in the German GP at the Solitudering in front of half-a-million spectators on a brandnew 350cc dohc parallel-twin designed for Horex by Austrian engineer Ludwig Apfelbeck – later to become the guru of radial-valve technology, and designer of BMW’s Formula 2 racing car engines. But this was the swansong for Horex in GP racing, as changing market
conditions and steeply declining production eliminated both the rationale and the budget to continue racing.
In 1953 Horex had introduced 250cc (65x75mm) and 400cc (74.5x91.5mm) versions of the Regina, while between April that year and the following November Horex enthusiasts Norbert Wittasek and Eduard Edilitzberger completed a 29,558 mile round-the-world journey on their 350 Regina, attached to a heavily-laden sidecar carrying all but the proverbial kitchen sink.
Sadly, owing to the drastic decline in motorcycle sales with the concurrent boom in small cars, Horex production had by now begun to nosedive to a mere 5000 bikes in 1955 from the 18,500 units sold in 1953. At the end of that year Horex replaced the ohv long-stroke Regina with the unitconstruction 350cc Resident single, with an all-new overhead-cam short-stroke motor. The significant development costs of this were compounded by the debut in early 1956 of the disastrous 250cc Rebell scooter, with an all-new horizontal-cylinder overhead-cam motor – so ill-conceived that reportedly the firm was not able to sell a single example!
Horex production for 1956 fell to just 2600 units, although the company received a shortterm lifeline by producing children’s toys and gardening tools, and becoming a component manufacturer for Mercedes-Benz. But Horex eventually closed early in 1958, and in 1960 Daimler-Benz acquired its Bad Homburg factory site for its own use.
Meanwhile, a 500cc parallel-twin derived from the Imperator continued in production – but in Japan, produced by Hosk, a former licensee of Horex. In the late 1950s, Hosk was bought by Showa, which in 1960 was itself in turn acquired by Yamaha. The Iwata factory’s engineers were thus able to use Showa’s technical assets, developing a 650cc version of the 500cc Horex-Hosk sohc parallel-twin design, which duly gave rise to the XS650 which debuted in 1969. This was Yamaha’s first four-stroke twin, which underpinned its attack on the European and especially American motorcycle markets. Strange – but true!
Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, German entrepreneur Fritz Roth attempted to revive the Horex name with Friedl Münch, using a 1400cc turbocharged in-line four based on Münch’s Mammut, and a series of 50cc two-strokes, although these were in fact badge-engineered Testi machines from Italy. But that Horex revival fizzled out in 1982, though in 1984 Roth tried again with another Italian makeover, this time a Rotax-engined 500cc café racer made by HRD in Busto Arsizio, right beside the MV Agusta factory, until they too went out of business.
Then, in 1992 the Horex name was used on a 650cc Honda Dominator-engined singlecylinder café racer called the Osca, which was briefly built and sold in Japan before it too died a death. Most recently, in 2005 high-mileage motorcyclist and IT entrepreneur Clemens Neese obtained the rights to the Horex name, and in 2012 unveiled the impressivelooking and soundly-engineered 1200 VR6 streetfighter, powered by a narrow-angle 15º V6 engine designed by Ludwig Apfelbeck’s disciple, Rupert Baindl.
Problems with suppliers meant the money ran out before volume production could commence, and the project was taken over by Karsten Jerschke, owner of Germany’s largest carbon fibre manufacturer, 3C-Carbon Group AG. He’s just re-launched the Horex brand with an updated VR6…
Despite no less than 74,300 examples of the
The Sammy Miller Museum in New Milton, Hampshire, UK is crammed full of interesting machines – including one of the biggest collections of exotic racing bikes in the world, and all are runners! These include the V8 Moto Guzzi, AJS Porcupine, Mondial 250 with dustbin fairing, Nortons, Ducatis, Suzukis, Hondas, Velocettes and many more. The Road Bike Hall includes a huge collection of factory prototypes and exotic designs from all over the world, and of course there are plenty of dirtbikes and trial icons, too – over 400 bikes in total.
The Museum is open to visitors daily from 10am every day.
Contact: Sammy Miller Museum, Bashley, New Milton, Hampshire B25 5SZ, U.K.
For further information and details tel. 01425 620777 or 616644 or visit sammymiller.co.uk
Horex Regina being built between 1949 and 1956, predominantly in 350cc guise but also in 250cc and 400cc variants, Germany’s bestselling classic-era bike is a rare sight outside that country. However, a mint example has just been acquired by the ubiquitous Sammy Miller for display in his eponymous Museum on England’s South Coast, where it will form part of a fascinating proposed German Corner in the new 10,000ft² twostorey extension he’s now received planning permission to build, which will be open to the public next spring.
‘I’ve always enjoyed German motorcycles, and not only because I had so much success racing my NSU Sportmax, and winning the North West 200 three times with it,’ says Sammy. ‘I admire their emphasis on quality and sound engineering, and their methodical approach to doing things right. So I envisage creating a German Section in the Museum extension, which will include examples we already have of Adler, Victoria, IFA, Maico, MZ, Münch, Zündapp and now Horex models, as well as several BMWs. And I’m going to keep an eye out for interesting new additions to that line-up, too.’
This 1952 Regina 350 came to Sammy already restored, having been purchased in Hungary in April 2015 for €6650 with matching engine and frame numbers by Sussex enthusiast Bernard Stevens, then imported to the UK. Delivered new by Stuttgart’s Horex dealer Otto Schick, according to the plate on the front mudguard, it’s one of the second series of such bikes introduced in 1952, with a larger capacity 18-litre fuel tank (up from 13.5 litres), enlarged mudguards with greater valancing for increased weather protection, and 30% more power from the low compression (6.8:1) dry sump long stroke motor, now producing 19bhp at 6250rpm – up from a lowly 15bhp at just 3500rpm on the first series model introduced in 1949.
Despite appearances, this is an ohv design,
not a cammy one, thanks to the twin pushrods being squeezed into the chrome external tube on the right of the cast iron cylinder, which gives it the appearance of a bevel-drive ohc motor. It’s an undeniably good-looking design by early post-war standards, with the pair of chromed exhausts sweeping gracefully away either side of the bike from the twin-port head to end in slender silencers.
The Regina’s bolted-up crankshaft, with its roller bearing big end assembly and onepiece conrod with phosphor-bronze small end bush supporting a three-ring Mahle piston, runs on three main ball bearings, with chain drive to the low-mounted camshaft. Valve clearances are easily adjusted by removing the large one-piece aluminium rocker cover and slackening the tappet nuts. The oil pump is housed under the timing cover on the right of the engine, with the tank centrally mounted low down beneath the rear engine mount, with a lockable filler cap on the left. A 26mm Bing 2/26/23 carb with a separate float chamber and Knecht air filter feeds fuel to the ohv cylinder head, which is cast iron on this bike even though an aluminium head was introduced in the year it was made.
There’s a four-speed gearbox with an oil bath clutch, with the Latin-style rocking gearshift lever unusually mounted on the right on this German bike, when all its compatriot rivals had it on the left. Mr. Honda must have been more impressed by what he saw at NSU rather than Horex, for it was the NSU Sportmax’s left-foot gearchange which Honda copied on its future road bikes!
The right-foot change is just another anglicism on a bike which could just as easily have been made in Birmingham as Bad Homburg. However, the left-foot kickstart takes some getting used to, and I preferred to stick it on the slightly flimsy-seeming main stand, then start it standing next to it and kicking the low compression motor over with my right leg, after flooding the Bing carb, lifting and turning the Bakelite key in the headlamp shell, setting the mixture on the right bar, and working the valve-lifter on the left. There’s a healthy crack from the twin exhausts once it chimes into life, and despite the engine’s ultra-longstroke dimensions, it has the sound and feel of a willing revver. Nice.
Kick down with your right heel to select bottom gear – there’s a 102-3-4 legend cast into the outer gearbox housing to remind you what’s on offer, in case you were unsure! – then look out for any stumps you can pull while accelerating off the mark. That’s because the Regina has unexpectedly good torque low down for ‘just’ a 350, coupled with an ultralow 3.25:1 bottom ratio in the crisp-changing gearbox, with a B-I-G gap to the 1.81:1 second gear, which as I proved to myself the Horex is perfectly happy to start off in on level ground. This is all obviously aimed at the sidecar fraternity, for whom the Regina was a popular and versatile tug for their Steib, Stultz, Mober or other family float. In solo form I could let the Horex’s road speed run down to 25mph in top gear on the speedo – showing 519km from new, presumably since restoration – and it would pull cleanly away again in top gear. That is a flexible friend.
Once under way it’s also hard to not feel impressed by the sense of substance the Horex conveys. It feels tight and solidly built, which I suppose it is, weighing 141kg dry, and while the plunger rear suspension is pretty hopeless at ironing out any significant road shock, the cantilever-sprung Denfeld saddle gives a sense of floating along on a magic carpet ride – I kid you not: it’s hyper-functional. You’re still aware of the 19-inch rear wheel skipping about over bumps beneath you, but that’s transmitted via your legs rather than your butt.
The 35mm oil-damped fork made by Horex itself is pretty good for such an early telescopic design, and especially a volume production one built to a price. Set at a 29º rake with 73mm of trail, it damps out road rash quite effectively,
though bigger bumps will still overcome it. Still, for 1952 the front suspension must have been a powerful marketing tool for Horex dealers. Less so would have been the brakes, a pretty puny 160mm single leading-shoe Horex drum at either end, which despite being full-width devices I had to use in concert to gain any significant stopping power – and that was riding solo. With a sidecar attached, and Mutti und die Kinder inside it, you’d need to be very cautious about braking distances from the 100km/h cruising speed shown on the speedo that the Horex is quite happy to run at in relaxing mode in top gear. You’d probably want to use engine braking to best advantage in stopping – but be careful not to use bottom gear, else a bent pushrod would be the least of your troubles! Horex claimed a top speed for the Regina 350 of 78mph, a claim that’s comparable with that for British equivalents like the Matchless G3L and AJS Model 16 – though a ZB32 BSA Gold Star would have been in a different league!
Well engineered, styled with flair, and soundly manufactured with a sense of substance I hadn’t expected before riding it, and with a fully enclosed drive chain in pursuit of durability and cleanliness, it’s easy to see how the Horex Regina was such a popular buy for German riders in the 1950s. They will have relished its spacious, comfortable riding position – ideal for the taller riders abounding in Germany both then and now. But, just as in Italy especially, but also Britain and France, the advent of the affordable small car with all its greater conveniences, spelled time’s up, meine Herren – for Horex, and for so many other companies like it. But it had been great while it lasted, and the Horex Regina must have transformed many lives in terms of convenience and dependability in post-war West Germany.