There is a huge variety of shapes and functions among the motorcycles on the road today. At the small and simple end of the scale are scooter-type bicycles, such as the Honda Super Cuband quite in the mainstream is Harley-Davidson, which has used a collection of mostly one and two cylinder engines on their motorcycles. Many current high-performance sports bikes. use four-cylinder engines to reach notable speedsbut that is by no means the upper limit when it comes to motorcycle engines.

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V8 engines, with two banks of four cylinders placed at an angle to each other, have long been at the heart of muscle cars, trucks and SUVs, but you might be surprised to learn how long V8s have been used in motorcycles. Forward-thinking, performance-minded iconoclasts have been putting V8 engines into motorcycles for more than a century, and their creations are among the most interesting two-wheeled vehicles ever built. We’ve slowly walked through motorcycle history to unearth what we believe are the coolest V8-powered motorcycles ever made. These five were selected for their designs, historical significance, and pure, spine-tingling performance..

Glenn Curtiss built his first motorcycle engine in 1902. It had one cylinder and produced only three horsepower, but the next year he followed up with a V-twin that had eight horsepower. He continued onward and upward, developing four-cylinder engines that generated up to 25 horsepower. In 1906, in response to demand from the fledgling aviation industry, work began on a V8 engine. Just a year later, Curtiss had the idea of ​​trying to fit the V8 into a motorcycle chassis and tasked his team with building one that could handle its weight and power.

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The finished product was almost 8 feet long and weighed 275 pounds with the motor in place. The seat had to be mounted far behind the engine, so the rider wouldn’t get burned, which required the use of absurdly long straight handlebars. The engine was also too powerful for a chain or belt drive, so Curtiss used a driveshaft with two universal joints to turn the rear wheel. Unstable steering and inadequate brakes did not prevent him from setting a land speed record on the bicycle in 1907, but the 136 mph run required a 2-mile stretch to accelerate, another mile to reach the record mark, and two more to reach the record mark. stop the bike.

In 1921, former Italian military pilot Carlo Guzzi joined forces with his Air Force colleague Giorgio Parodi and his shipbuilder father Emanuele to form Moto Guzzi. By 1934, Guzzi was Italy’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and the company produced Alce, Trialce and Airone for the country’s army during World War II. The company moved into racing after the war and has since won 14 world championships in the sport. In 1955, Guzzi introduced a racing motorcycle with a 500 cc V8 engine and a huge fairing that almost completely hid the engine from view. Initially it could run up to 12,000 revolutions per minute and produce 65 horsepower, but by 1957 Guzzi engineers had increased those figures to 14,000 rpm and 80 horsepower..

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The long seat, huge fuel tank, and spaceship-like fairing make this one of the most unique motorcycle designs of all time, and the 80 horsepower was about 10 more than most motorcycle engines. competitive four-cylinder racing cars of that era. Only five of these 328-pound beasts were produced, and the model suffered more than its share of mechanical problems. Guzzi V8s won only three Grand Prix races, although they did manage to capture the Italian championship in 1957. Sadly, that same year also marked the end of Moto Guzzi’s line of V8 efforts.

(Featured image by Serge Piotin via Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and scaled|CC-BY SA 2.5)

The same year that Moto Guzzi won the Italian Championship with its V8-powered motorcycle, 16-year-old Elon Jack “EJ” Potter of Michigan was inspired to equip a motorcycle with one of Chevy’s new small-block V8s. It took three years to realize his fever dream, but in 1960 the Bloody Mary 1 was born. It had a 283cc V8 and spawned two more models of the same name before Potter renamed his unholy machines Widowmakers. However, it kept the number sequence intact, so the fourth and final machine became known as Widowmaker 7. A 1/4-mile run of 8.68 seconds at 172 mph earned the Widowmaker 7 a 1973 Guinness Book honor as “the world’s fastest motorcycle.” but as the journalist Roger Meiners said New York Times for Potter’s 2012 obituary, “EJ wasn’t looking to win anything. He just showed up and tried to make people say, ‘Oh my God!'”

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Widowmaker 7 350 cubic inch Chevy V8 It had several upgrades that increased its power to around 500 horsepower, blurring the line between genius and silliness. In his 1999 memoir, “Michigan Madman,” Potter scornfully admitted that his was a strange kind of genius. “Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time,” he wrote, “even, usually, surpassing knowledge.” The Widowmaker 7 recently went up for auction in Las Vegas, but the high bid didn’t meet the seller’s reserve price.

Giancarlo Morbidelli was already a successful manufacturer of woodworking machines when he began building Grand Prix motorcycles in 1968. Gilberto Parlotti won the Czechoslovak Grand Prix on a Morbidelli three years later, and in 1975 Morbidelli’s creations won the first of his seven world championships. However, a subsequent ill-fated attempt to jump from the 125cc to 250cc class to the highest levels of racing failed and the division closed in 1982. Ten years later, Morbidelli built a prototype road bike with an eight-cylinder engine, which he called simply the “V8.” The 850 cc engine was based on the Cosworth Formula 1 design and the bodywork was designed by Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina..

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The V8 was a design well ahead of its time and a harbinger of the shape that many 21st century sports bikes would take. The so-called production version that appeared in 1994 was priced at $45,000 (equivalent to almost $100,000 today), making it the most expensive motorcycle in the world and by 1998, only four had been made, including the prototype. . Morbidelli claimed a maximum output of 120 horsepower, which saw the motorcycle reach 150 mph through a shaft-driven rear wheel. The company soon went bankrupt, but Morbidelli opened a motorcycle museum in Pesaro in 1999 which remained open until his death in 2020.

(Featured image by Brian Glass via Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and scaled|CC-BY SA 2.0)

Boss Hoss is the latest motorcycle manufacturer to put Chevy V8s in their bikes. Boss Hoss motorcycles make no attempt to downplay or hide the presence of these beasts, allowing the exhaust pipes to open wide on each side and mounting a suitable rectangular radiator between the engine and front fork. Boss Hoss makes a handful of V8-powered trikes with robust bodies that pay tribute to automotive icons such as the 1957 Chevy Bel Air and Jeep Willysbut their two-wheeled range is equally impressive.

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The cream of that crop is the Limited Super Sport, which has a 496cc big-block V8 that produces a nearly unnecessary 600 horsepower and 568 pound-feet of torque.. It puts that big push to the road through a two-speed semi-automatic transmission with reverse and rides on an 80-inch wheelbase. Boss Hoss bikes aren’t for everyone, but the fact that they’re built to customer specifications at the company’s factory in Dyersburg, Tennessee, will attract some curious buyers who don’t mind the high five-figure starting price.