The Motorcycle design, art and desire
The concluding part of a two-part feature, in which the history of motorcycle evolution is examined and a new book’s author interviewed.
Half way across the world, a queue is snaking outside the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Australia. The long line is comprised of avid motorcycle fans, eager to gawp at the dozens of machines on display which together illustrate the fascinating evolution of motorcycle design.
The exhibition – entitledTheMotorcycle: Design,
Art, Desire – bears all the hallmarks of a contemporary art display: artworks (in this case motorcycles) are generously spaced-out and mounted on slick white plinths and accompanied by perspex-cased text panels. We are thus reminded that our beloved two-wheelers are not only technologically impressive but also beautiful works of art in their own right. It’s nowonder that the exhibition has received rave reviews.
And fortunately, we don’t have to travel 9526 miles to experienceTheMotorcycle: Design, Art, Desire either: art publisher Phaidon have saved us that job by producing an accompanying book of the same name. Its authors – Charles Falco andUltan Guilfoyle – are also the show’s curators and, as such, the book itself is a sort of exhibition, albeit a paginated one.
In last month’s TCMwe embarked on the first part of a ‘tour’ ofTheMotorcycle with its author and TCM reader Charles Falco and now, it’s time for part two….
Design comes in many forms. In the last issue of
TCM, Charles Falco described some of the influences that have determined the development of motorcycle technology, such as the magneto. But as for the way a motorcycle looks, that’s a whole other story…
The world’s first motorcycle is considered to be the French-built Perreaux steam velocipede, produced between 1867 and 1871. Put simply, the velocipede
was a Louis-Guillaume Perraux steam engine bolted to a Pierre Michael iron-framed bicycle. It is a crude creation but it served the purpose of the velocipede: to propel a pedal powered device. It ticked its literal boxes too: ‘velocipede’ is from the Latin ‘velox’ (swift) and pes (foot) hence, Perreaux’s machine absolutely did what it said on the tin. Its fundamental design was echoed in subsequent motorcycles for years to come.
Ultan Guilfoyle writes in The Motorcycle: “The lines of Pierre Michaux’s velocipedes were pleasing and the very centre of the frame seemed like a good place to stick an engine, even a steam engine.”
Falco argues that it’s this basic bicycle frame that likewise gave rise to the V-twin, which became a design staple. “When you look at a bicycle frame you can see it’s a V-shape and this perfects a natural space for a cylinder and a crankcase and furthermore, to double the power, you simply add another cylinder. That's why the twins ended up the way they did.”
But what’s interesting is that this basic V-design emerged across the world, from America to Australia and without any known collaboration between manufacturers. The first V-twinwas arguably the Gottlieb Daimler in 1889, with other versions emerging from around 1900. Indeed: Princeps AutoCar Co in Northampton produced a V-twin in 1903-1905, there was the Curtiss V-twin in 1905 and by 1907 Peugeot had produced its 1907 TT-winning twin cylinder engine.
“These designs were being produced independently of one another,” says Falco. “And the internet wasn’t so fast back then…,” he laughs. “It’s not likemanufacturers were copying what other people were doing, it is more the case then they were drawing from other industries and taking ideas from outside.” For the early era motorcycles, those industries were that of the bicycle and the automobile.
But while early motorcycles featured the same basic ingredients, individual ‘recipes’ soon emerged. The crude bicycle-frame-with-bolted-on-engine design soon allowed for aesthetic tweaks which often reflected a national style, as Guilfoyle explains inTheMotorcycle: “Cars and motorcycles were, at first, just built. In other words, they were constructed in workshops and garages by talentedmechanical and engineering innovators. With interest in these new, excitingmachines at a frenzy, cars and motorcycles started to be designed, that is, drawn on paper, before being handed to the mechanics and engineers.” Good design enhancedamotorcycle’s appeal to prospective customers and enthusiasts.
“Of course, an American wanted an American-style design, while someone in France wanted something
that looked, well, French,” writes Guilfoyle. “The early world of motorcycle design had national characteristics that we can celebrate today.”
Interestingly, the predominant factor in influencing motorcycle design was the manner in which a nation used horsepower. “The Brits designed slightly dull, workmanlike motorcycles, with names that flourish still: Triumph, Royal Enfield, Norton,” writes Guilfoyle. “They were solid, upright designs, with the rider in an upright position, as if riding a horse English-style, with a straight line running fromnorth to south through the rider’s shoulders, bottom and ankles. The young engineers who worked in those factories may not have arrived at their workshops on horseback, but they probably arrived in a horse and cart, and the style of horse riding was as familiar to themas the taste of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Very English.”
America, on the other hand, wanted something different: “GeorgeMHendee and Oscar Hedstrom, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Messrs Harley and
Davidson, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, all arriving to work on horseback, rode in a different, ‘cowboy’ style: laid-back, feet-forward, neck-reining. That American style of riding a horse has come to define the American style of motorcycle design.”
As Falco says: “In America, if youwere inMinneapolis, Minnesota and you asked me how to get to Sturgis, I would tell you ‘go right and ride for 400 miles directly west on one highway.’ In the USA, you only have to drive back and forth but to travel the same distance
in Europe – for example from Prague to Amsterdam – you can't go 50 feet without having to turn. This requires much more manoeuvrability and this difference in travelling style is reflected in the seating style of American and European motorcycles.”
TheMotorcycle: Design, Art, Desire hones in on the fascinating and dynamic nature of the early years of motorcycle design–not just twins either. There are singles aplenty, including a 1906 Australian-built Spencer, a 1903 Minerva and the 1908 Indian D’Ora.
Later, other influences start to have an effect on national styles, such as emerging aviation technology and expertise. Guilfoyle cites BMW’s R32 as one such example: “Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works, or BMW) was an aircraft engine manufacturer of renown. BMW, however, was on the wrong side of the First World War, and it struggled to gain a foothold asamanufacturer of engines and automobiles in the early 1920s. Aircraft engineer Max Friz, when asked to look at motorcycles as a way forward in those difficult years, created the R32, using a horizontally opposed aircooled twin, the so-called boxer engine, that has been the hallmark of BMWmotorcycles ever since. It was not just the engine that set the BMWapart, it was the way Friz integrated the engine into the rest of the design, howhemarried the engine seamlessly to its parts: the triangular frame, the tank, the pinstriped symmetrical mudguards, the low seat, the wide handlebars, and the headlight, perched high and leading the way forward, almost like a flag.”
BMW’s boxer engine format becameamainstay of the marque’s subsequent designs, designs whichwould eventually become absorbed into licensed spin-offs across the globe. The Russian-built M-72s are based on the BMWR-71 and the Chinese-built Yangtze River 750 is based on the M-72. “That’s what licensing does for you,” says Falco. “It’s like Covid: it spreads across the world.”
It’s this cross-pollination that also led to the huge expansion of the Japanese motorcycle industry, according to Falco. “It’s easier to improve something and edit it than to write the first draft. The Japanese didn’t have to inventamotorcycle, they just made the existing ones better.”
Eventually, Falco argues, the variations in design started to stabilise in the 1970s, givingway to what he defines as an ‘international’ style. A quick glance at both the Norton Commando andaHonda 400/4 confirms this theory: both share the same basic aesthetic.
This could be owing to the expectations of the typical motorcycle customer. “Motorcyclists are intrinsically conservative,” says Falco. “There's this phrase a famous French-American designer Raymond Loewy invented: ‘most advanced, yet acceptable’ (MAYA) which describes the constraints faced when designingmotorcycles for the mass market.
“Some motorcycle designs are just too out-there,” says Falco. “One example is the Ner-a-Car: that was just a bit too extreme so it never really took off.” But the Ner-a
Car wasn’t too ‘out there’ for the exhibition: indeed an example is featured in the book.
Falco says: “The book and exhibition are not really about the usual suspects though there are some of the usual suspects, such as a Vincent Black Lightning. The book operates at a deeper level than one would normally look atamotorcycle and to enable people to understand themas products of design.”
Despite Falco’s ability to explain the complex influences of motorcycle design history, the academic is at a loss when it comes to choosing his favourite machine in the book. ‘That’s like asking a mother to choose her favourite child,” he laughs.
But after some probing, he settles on a singlemachine: “Okay, if I really, really have to choose one motorcycle, it would be the 1928 Georges Roy Majestic. That was something quite different. And it’s just a beautiful example ofamotorcycle that many motorcyclists don't like because it doesn't look like a motorcycle.”
Georges Roy’s Majestic had very little impact on the motorcycle world. It was, in Falco’s words, too ‘out there’ to have any influence on subsequent design. And of all the reasons to choose thismachine as his favourite, Falco says: ‘It’s quite simple: I just look at that machine and smile.”