Why Janus Motorcycles Buys Its Engine From China

Janus Motorcycles has been hand-building retro-styled motorcycles in its Goshen, Indiana workshop since 2011, and the company prides itself on the fact that most of the components of its bikes are made within a 20-mile radius of that workshop. Each morning, one of Janus' two dozen or so employees takes the company's black Ford Econoline van on what is known as a "milk run" around to various Elkhart county vendors to gather parts for that day's assembly efforts. 

One critical piece that is not collected on the milk run is the 229cc engines used in the Halcyon 250 and Griffin 250 and the 445cc powerplant found in the Halcyon 450. Those motors are imported from China and are one of just a handful of parts made abroad (the gauges, carburetors, brake system, air filters, lights, and suspension are also imported).

Janus CEO and founder Richard Worsham appeared on the Made in the USA podcast explaining to hosts Brent Donaldson and Pete Zelinski why the company sourced its engines from China when it made a point to gather so many of its other parts locally.  

Worsham detailed the painstaking process he went through to set up the local supply chain and manual assembly process for Janus' bikes. He emphasized that part of the appeal of their final product was their relatively light weight; a Halcyon 450 tips the scales at just 345 pounds. He explained that the standard American-made motorcycle engine didn't seem like a good fit for his pared-down bike, so he sought something more suitable to propel Janus' bikes down the road. 

"The typical engine when you think of a motorcycle made in the United States is a big old honkin, V Twin made by either Harley Davidson or Indian or s&s cycle," he said, "And believe me, we've looked at doing that or chopping S&S in half and making a kind of a beautiful single, but really it didn't fit with what we're trying to do." 

Worsham further explained that he wanted to provide his buyers with a simple, reliable, easy-to-service engine. Eventually, Janus settled on a 229cc motor designed by Honda in the 1970s. "Part of having a reliable engine is having one that with parts availability, like these engines, they've been making parts for this thing for three decades, four decades," he explained. "So that was a big part of it."

The motor Janus uses in its 250 series bikes puts out 14 horsepower and propels the bikes to a top speed of 70 mph; the Halcyon 250 boasts fuel mileage of better than 75 mpg, while the Gryffin gets a little better than 70 mpg.

When it came time to outfit the company's larger bike, Worsham wasn't about to change course. "The same thing holds true of our 450, which is another kind of an X Honda design based on the XR 400 manufactured in China for an Italian company," he said. "And lo and behold, here's the perfect fit, because you're not going to find that in any other stateside manufacturer." 

The Halcyon 450's engine is more than twice as powerful as the one in the 250 series bikes, putting out 30 horsepower and hurling the 450 down the road at up to 90 mph. The four-valve engine on the Halcyon 450 is fuel-injected, unlike the smaller carbureted motors on the 250 series Janus offerings.