10 Motorcycles That Were Way Ahead Of Their Time

Although some crude prototypes predate it, the 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller is widely considered to be the first mass-produced motorcycle, with about 2,000 copies built. With that model also came the first use of the portmanteau, combining "motor" and "cycle" to describe it. Despite having a twin-cylinder engine of 1500cc, its output was only 2.5 horsepower, though it demonstrated thinking far ahead of others of that era.

In the 130 years of motorcycle production, countless designers and engineers have come up with ingenious and crazy designs. The proliferation of divergent early designs eventually converged into the familiar setup we recognize today as a motorcycle, but plenty of changes and innovations along the way have come and gone. Some have stayed, while others failed to garner long-term acceptance by riders. Plenty of models introduced features that were either poorly developed for mainstream success or so well done that competitors were caught off guard and had to scramble to catch up.

These are the 10 bikes that are sometimes said to be ahead of their time, introducing breakthrough designs that may or may not catch on.

By the 1980s, the motorcycle industry had produced millions of modern machines, benefiting from a century of development. They were powerful and efficient machines capable of safely riding at high speeds with predictable handling and reliability, yet manufacturers were always looking for ways to add more power. Turbocharging had just begun seeing widespread use in automobiles, so it seems natural to apply it to motorcycles.

Kawasaki was the first with the 1978 Z1R-TC but was not a factory-approved model. In 1982, Honda introduced a regular production model with forced induction called the CX500T. The liquid-cooled 500cc v-twin engine received a single IHI turbocharger, raising the output from 50 to 82 horsepower while also introducing Honda's first bike with electronic fuel injection. This included digital ignition, anti-dive front brakes, and a single-shock rear suspension all covered in a complete fairing and bodywork the TURBO displayed prominently on its side.

Honda raised the engine size to 650cc the next year while gaming turbocharged competition from Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki. However, all the manufacturers discovered the added complexity and turbo lag was not worth the expense over simply using a larger engine.

The 1980s turbo experiment ended almost before it got started. It wasn't until 2016 when Kawasaki released the 200 mph Ninja H2R that turbocharging returned to motorcycles.

"You Meet The Nicest People On A Honda" is what Honda's advertising wanted consumers to think when it launched a new series of advertisements in 1962. Motorcycles had garnered a lousy reputation due to an association with hooliganism thanks, in part, to the sensational but successful Marlon Brando film "The Wild One" about a band of listless troublemakers on motorcycles. Honda needed to counter people's preconceptions because its cycle was the antithesis to anything ridden by a gang.

In 1958, Honda introduced a new motorcycle that would go on to establish the company's reputation for building reliable, efficient, and practical vehicles. Designed by Soichiro Honda himself, the new model, dubbed Super Cub, featured a step-through design with an "underbone" frame and large-diameter wheels. Mr. Honda held a well-known disdain for two-stroke engines, which were dominant among Japanese cycles of the era, and chose a simple air-cooled four-stroke engine design to power the Super Cub.

Sales of the Super Cub took off, selling in markets worldwide. While they became excellent choices for secondary transportation or recreation in wealthy markets, they became primary transportation for millions in developing nations. Indeed, the design borrowing elements from both motorcycles and scooters proved that Honda had the right idea before anyone else, and it helped his company zoom to the top. As of today, more than 100 million Super Cubs have been sold worldwide, making it the best-selling vehicle of all time.

While Honda made several cruiser models for the American market, beginning with its 1983 Magna, it took a more full-throated approach when Honda released the 2004 Valkyrie Rune, an extravagant exercise in style. Wildly embellished with chrome and flair, this big, thick, and fat motorcycle looked ready to overtake the boulevard and push every other bike aside. The Honda branding, however, meant it was not a forceful brute but a refined gent. It also brought with it several innovations.

Sitting in the frame of the Rune was the same flat-six engine found in a Honda Goldwing but with a few tweaks giving it a little more punch. A new trailing link front suspension and Unit Pro-Link adapted from MotoGP kept riders comfortable and in control while meticulous engineering went into every other aspect of the bike. The development approach mirrored that of a Rolls-Royce where no expense is spared in the pursuit of excellence.

The result of the incredible amount of work that went into making the Rune was an enormous loss realized with each bike sold. Even with a high retail price of $25,000 2004 dollars, Honda still reportedly lost $75,000 on each bike, according to Adventure Rider. Perhaps Honda wanted to build the ultimate cruiser and used the Rune to show it could be done, but found that American steel and heritage styling remained more important to buyers in the end.

The allure of hitting the open road on two wheels with the wind in your hair has always attracted a portion of the population, and finding new riders not already drawn to the experience is a difficult task. Regardless, Honda once thought it should try.

By the late '80s, Honda had its large Goldwing for veteran riders but needed something to draw in new ones, creating a new model with broad appeal. Thus, it released the 1989 Pacific Coast, featuring full bodywork covering the entire bike, which was supposed to spark a desire in a typical driver of its Honda Civic automobile. Therefore, the PC800 motorcycle came with a modestly powered 800cc v-twin completely covered by plastic panels with a unique rear section that flipped up to expose a sizable, for a motorcycle, trunk. Up front was a dashboard with gauges not entirely unlike that of a car, and on the handlebars were controls of an integrated radio with speakers in the fairing. The finishing touch was a light bar across the rear that mimicked many cars of the period.

Initially only selling for two years, Honda brought it back in 1994 for a second run of four years. Sometimes seen as a "baby Goldwing," it is unclear how many Civic drivers it brought in, but stuck around for a while nonetheless. It remains a unique motorcycle, and its futuristic, all-encompassing body is still not a mainstream feature, so perhaps it was a bit too forward-thinking.

You may not have heard of Italjet even though it has been around since 1962. Building a range of models over the years, Italjet has always been a small but innovative company. And in the tradition of innovation, Italjet released a scooter like no other in 1998, the Dragster.

Often thought of as cheap, convenient, and economical, scooters are rarely created for sport. However, Italjet sought to do just that by building a highly unconventional scooter featuring unorthodox suspension components with an also unorthodox two-stroke 180cc engine to power it. Sitting on a "spaceframe" trellis frame with hub-center steering, a feature usually reserved for more exotic racing bikes, the front shock is actually mounted in the center of the frame, making the front wheel appear disconnected from the handlebars. Its look is wild, like no other scooter on the road, while the scream of the 180cc engine pierces the air almost as much as the trail of smoke from the two-stroke engine's burned oil.

Although this style of scooter never caught on in a big way, Italjet recently revived the concept. A redesigned and updated version is now available in 125, 200, and 300cc variants, although not yet in the United States. Incredibly, Italjet has also announced a limited edition 700cc twin variant capable of 118 mph to be available for only 700 buyers soon. These variants and the original are all ahead of their time and remain unique within the market as incredibly cool but niche vehicles.

AVMOTO/Wikimedia Commons

The Harley-Davidson company of the 1970s suffered from an array of simmering calamities waiting to bubble up to the surface and pull the rug out from under everything. Under the ownership of American Machine and Foundry (AMF), Harley-Davidson struggled to survive through the entire decade. In attempts to diversify its offerings, management gave a green light to multiple new products including snowmobiles and golf carts while introducing new models of its core business, v-twin motorcycles. One of the more interesting models to come from this era worth an extra look is the Harley-Davidson XLCR, built from 1977 to 1979.

With an initial glance at the XLCR, you can see it is unmistakably a Harley-Davidson from the Ironhead air-cooled v-twin engine and the shape of its standard Harley crankcase and gearbox assembly but familiarity ends there. It is a classic café racer, and was built to attract riders who might be drawn to a Moto Guzzi, Ducati, or Triumph. With a frame borrowed from a Sportster, modifications position the seat for a forward lean rather than laid back and relaxed.

Despite complaints of a stiff clutch, stiff brakes, and a stiff ride, Cycle World in '77 walked away from it desiring more and drawn to the ever-present rumble of the v-twin no other bike provides. And despite high praise from such a trusted source, buyers largely ignored the XLCR. It retired after just three years but is now a prized collectible. Furthermore, Harley has since revisited the concept with its XR1200 and Street 750.

During Harley's AMF years, mismanagement of the company led to extremely poor quality of its bikes as notoriously reliable Japanese bikes gained in the market, a brutal combination. Eager to raise the spectre of delivering a well-built and reliable machine that could counter its imported competition, AMF product planners looked for a partner with the expertise to help them develop the next generation of Harley-Davidson.

For engineering assistance, Harley struck a deal with none other than Porsche to bring the next Harley to market. In contrast to the aging – and oil leaking – Ironhead v-twin, together they were to introduce a sophisticated motorcycle with all-new technology featuring engineering more advanced than anyone else at the time. The Harley-Davidson Nova project hit the ground well-funded and full of enthusiasm, eventually delivering a water-cooled v-4 engine to be placed into the bike as a stressed member of the frame. Advanced tech continued with its dual overhead cams and, incredibly, fuel injection decades before it became standard on Harleys.

The innovative Nova project made it to the final stage with a production-ready 1981 model prototype — and plans for a V6 — fully assembled and undergoing testing. It would have been a dramatic shift in Harley design and likely put its design ahead of both the Japanese and Europeans. However, it was not to be as the new cash-strapped owners after AMF could build the new v-twin, which became the wildly successful Evolution, or the Nova but not both, although Porsche eventually returned to help build the 2001 V-Rod.

With well over a century of motorcycle manufacturing, we have seen an evolution of engineering, incrementally adding improvements with time. Yet, builders occasionally come along and leap-frog the development curve to introduce an innovation years before anyone else. And regarding the short-lived Joerns Motor Manufacturing Company of St. Paul, Minnesota, its innovations jumped ahead by about 85 years.

From 1912 to 1917, Joerns built motorcycles known to be incredibly fast, if not reliable. This was proven at the time by the success of its bikes on the racing circuit, which was dominated by board-track racing, an oval track sport with motorcycles circling on banked tracks of fir or pine at up to 100 mph. Packed with incredible racing action, it provided nearly as many funerals as it did thrills. Joerns ruled the day with its Cyclone racer, although the company's focus on racing overshadowed its street bike business, leading to its failure.

The Cyclone featured a 61-cubic-inch v-twin with overhead valves and camshaft, something no American v-twin would have for the rest of the century. And as impressive as that may be, it gets better. The combustion chambers were hemispherical and the camshafts operated by bevel gears instead of a chain. Most parts were made of forged hardened steel, and roller bearings decreased friction. And while 45 horsepower sounds modest today, it was a beast in 1915, which is why one recently sold at a Mecum auction for $1.3 million, a motorcycle auction record.

In 2016, Kawasaki unleashed the ultimate superbike with the Kawasaki Ninja H2R, raising its output to 310 horsepower with a supercharger. And while this mind-bogglingly fast superbike is a recent addition to the Kawasaki lineup, a supercharged bike is actually a rather old concept. Long before the turbo bikes of the '80s capitalized on forced induction, superchargers forced their way onto bikes racing in Europe in the 1920s.

BMW Motorrad built its first bike in 1923 and took it racing almost immediately. One of its racers, a BMW dealer named Ernst Henne, longed for more speed on his BMW and desired to achieve a world speed record. Also a talented mechanic, Henne looked at adding a supercharger to his bike to boost the power, and his idea made its way to BMW's official racing team, resulting in the factory-produced WR 750 for the 1929 racing season.

The WR 750 did earn Henne a 1934 speed record, but it still lagged behind the English bikes on the circuit. BMW followed it up with the Type 255. With its Zoller supercharger, the 500cc bike made about 60 horsepower and led to the first German rider winning the Grand Prix in 1939. Superchargers spread to other teams as an off-track race to build the fastest bikes heated up, but in 1946, superchargers were banned, and the technology remained mostly absent from motorcycles for the rest of the century.

In the late '70s, BMW Motorrad's offerings had become somewhat stodgy and stale, leaving the brand in a rut. Looking for something new and different, designer Hand Muth, who had already had a hit with the BMW R90S, the company's first sportbike, put together a prototype on a shoestring budget and created something altogether different from anything else on the market.

Previously, motorcycles were made for dirt or street, and the only crossovers were dual sport, or enduro, models, which were mostly dirt bikes adapted for road legal use. Scramblers also existed, but these were mostly street bikes adapted for the dirt. The new Muth project adapted a chassis and engine developed for a street bike into something equally comfortable on pavement and dirt.

Dubbed the R80 with the G/S suffix representing the German words for terrain and street, Gelande and Strasse. With this bike, BMW created the adventure bike segment single-handedly. It also proved to be a big success and responsible for keeping the company afloat with steady sales. Furthermore, it spawned copycats to the point that no motorcycle builder today can exist without at least one model in the adventure bike category — even Harley-Davidson has joined the fray with its Pan America adventure bike.