Walk the Line 5 British Motorcyles with inline Engines

There have been many machines through history that have mounted their engines along the frame, so in this video we show 5 interresting examples

This time it’s five British motorcycles with inline Engines throughout history there have been a large number of motorcycles fitting with their engines mounted in line along the frame it is said that the first inline 4 was produced by FN a Belgium company this went on to inspire a number of American compan iies who are

Probably more famous for it these days but there have been a number of notable British examples too and I don’t just mean one-offs like mil od’s amazing Viper engined monster the Sunbeam S7 and S8 founded as a bicycle manufacturer by John Marsden Sunbeam is a company best

Known for the high quality rather than necessarily the groundbreaking design of their motorcycles and indeed they were one of the last big British companies to move on to saddle tanks during the veteran and vintage years they produced large numbers of single cylinder and v twin engine machines but the company would

Fall into financial difficulties and would pass through various hands before been taken over by Associated motorcycles in the mid-30s AMC would produce a completely new range of high cam single cylinder engines but unfortunately the outbreak of War would mean these machines would be produced for only a very short time for AMC sold

The name on to BSA in 1942 BSA were offered BMWs designs as War reparations but decided to go their own way with a new Sunbeam they bought in designer erling Pope who in the 1920s worked on the ill fated P&P motorcycles to design an all new bike which was very much

Influenced by BMW at least in concept the initial S7 model arrived in 1947 had quite bulbous ties and had a very rounded look which today you would call a bobber the engine was a parallel 487 CC twin but rather than across the frame as was the convention at that point hope

Ran the engine in line for a four speed gearbox and then shaft drive to the rear wheel and then at the rear wheel power was transmitted VI a worm Drive something which would come to bite them on the backside a little bit later on there were very chunky telescopic Forks

At the front and plunge suspension on the production versions at least at the rear prototypes had run rigids initially the engine was bolted straight to the frame this turned out to be a mistake when initial b was rushed over to South Africa for a rooll visit and found to

Vibrate horrendously the bike was then redesigned with rubber engine mounts but this meant they act to add a flexible section into the exhaust pipe to stop it cracking and this would be a source of rust but a bigger problem was the rear Worm Drive which W rapidly some beam

Solution to this instead of redesigning the thing you must to Simply detune the engine to 24 horsepower at 6,000 RPM and as a result the intended Sports version of the machine was was permanently shelved the engine unit was somewhat unusual in a number of ways it was a

Single overhead cam unit of 487 CS with a bing stroke of 70x 63.5 and the bike had a dry weight of some £430 but the bike was a slow seller and was changed very little throughout its lifetime there would be the S8 version with less bulous tires and BSA A10 front

Forks but that was about as adventurous as it got because it was becoming all too apparent the BS had frankly lost all interest in the project and didn’t have or didn’t want to spend the cash to greatly improve it the refined gentlemanly manners of the bike did mean

That it had a firm following but it was a small one and so in 1957 BSA called it end to Sunbeam production Francis Barnett Pullman Francis Barnet was a company founded in 1919 by Golden Francis and Offa bares and lower Ford Street centry in the early days a company was best

Known for the development of its btop frame which could be fitted with engines from various manufacturers including Blackburn and of course vilers and vilers would power most of the machines until the adoption of the AMC engines in the late 50s but perhaps the most interesting design was the Pullman

Arriving in 1927 and made use of an allnew Villa inline twin cylinder two-stroke engine of 344 4 CCS which was married up to a three-speed gearbox and had chain final drive and while looking radical the engine was actually just two of their 175cc singles mounted in line

Of each other employing the same bore and Stroke of 57x 67 and using a crankshaft of 180° spacings which had the usual Village Magneto system mounted at the front of the engine the bike was never intended as a sports machine employing just a single carburetor and was praised for its smoothness on release

Top speed incidentally was around 995 km an hour that’s around 55 mph for a 127 Kilo bike so despite its bulky looks it was actually surprisingly light at the top end the engine had cast iron bowels with a single piece aluminium head inside could be found deflector Pistons constructed of aluminum another Advanced

Feature was the use of a pressurized automatic or lubrication system rather than much more common premix used in most two strokes to the period however those twin cylinders and automatic lubrication system did make the bite more expensive and sales were very slow production would continue into 1928 but by early

1929 Francis baret decid to wind up production completely and interestingly few of the companies would make use of the engine although Mone goon in France would make use of the engine for a short period the Royal Enfield three in the period immediately after World War I warland field scrapped around

Looking for new ideas for machines and what they would believed would be an immediate postwar boom and one of the designs they came up with was a 675cc three cylinder inline two-stroke now unfortunately only the Prototype of this very interesting machine was ever completed but what I do know is it was

Based on their single cylinder 225 two-stroke engine which had first appeared in the range just before the start of hostilities in 1914 and in various forms would remain in production until the mid-30s the engine had a Boren stroke of 60x 70 and was described as a thre port engine

That’s one Inlet and two exhaust and in its single cylinder 2011 form was rated at 2 and a/4 horsepower this is of course a rating and not an exact figure but it does give you some idea of the performance that was likely from the three-cylinder job the engine was a

Fairly conventional deflector piston two-stroke but did feature roller bearings had an external flywheel and a three-speed transmission power was then fed by a chain to the rear wheel which featured a cush Drive something which Royal Enfield pioneered in the single cylinder form top speed was around 35

Mph so it’s reasonable to expect that the three-cylinder engine would put somewhere out around 7 horsepower and gone around 55 mph had it been produced of course p type features manual oiling and the clutch rather interestingly sits just above the footboard on the left side so the rider would have to reach

Below his left leg to operate the clutch which I’m sure would have been interesting the rest of the machine is pretty standard for the time at a settling lights and G of forks interestingly in a 4Runner to disc brakes the bike uses a dummy rim on the

Side rather similar to those that have been used for belt drive into which runs a stup which applies the brake I’ve seen a similar system on some competition douglases of the period unfortunately the bike would never reach production so I never really know just how well it would have gone the Wilkinson

TMC Wilkinson is a company best known today of course for its razor blades but in the past it was involved in all manner of Steel work including from 1903 motorcycles they produced bikes between 1903 and 1905 but after break would start again between 1912 and 1915 there’s no doubt that the

Wilkinson’s are very unique looking motorcycles the TMC simply stands for touring motorcycle incidentally first machine used an inlet over exhaust engine of four cylinders laid in line with a car type drrive clutch and a 3-speed gearbox capacity was 678 CC’s and it was rated at between 5 and 6

Horsepower depending on model with cast iron been used to forge both the crank case and the top end the front forks were a chaser lead design while the rear end used a leaf spring setup subsequent redesigners would see the engine adopt liquid cooling and there would be a

Gradual increase in capacity too from 848 to 1,087 cc’s in the final model this model incidentally was also rated at around 6 to 7 horsepower the Sparks came courtesy of a Bosch magnet probably the best design available at that time whilst Lighting in common with most Machines of the era was provided by

Acetylene however by 1915 with the war raging Wilkinson ceased production of its motorcycles the engine however would reappear in a small car in the postwar era the bru Superior bs4 the Bruff Superior bs4 has to be one of the most unusual motorcycles ever produced in the United Kingdom using as

It does an Austin 7 engine and having two rear wheels it is known that George bu considered the four-cylinder engine superior to the V Twins and single cylinder engines that had used thus far and indeed did develop some in-house engines of his own such as the dream

Model none of which would go onto each series production however in 1932 George bro announced the bs4 or straight for machine made use of a modified Austin 7 engine slightly increased in capacity to 797 CC’s however the transmission came straight from the Austin 7 and would

Include the use of two rear wheels and a reverse gear of course buff could get away with this because the machine unlike any previous Bru was intended for side car use only or so you would think cuz actually Hubert chantley successfully completed the lanzen trial on one Riding Solo so I guess anything’s

Possible Al though I suspect Hubert must have been quite a rider fitting with a sidec car the bike wasn’t exactly rapid the Austin 7 engine of course used a standard transmission and wasn’t geared up but it did generate plenty of torque and had really good traction with those

Extra two wheels so would have made for an extremely good sidec Mount the machine was only ever built in tiny numbers and cost around £1,000 to develop around 5,000 in today’s money and each one was sold for around £188 so somewhat less than an SS 100 but unfortunately only 10 were ever

Completed with around half of that number known to have survived and in fact so rare are these machines that the one stored of the National Motorcycle Museum is in fact a replica but as with so many of Bruff designs the fact that the bike didn’t sell particularly well

Wasn’t a major problem because while not a great Commercial Success it did generate an awful lot of publicity what of a collection of bikes would you like to see us do a video on or maybe you’ve got a bike we can use your test ride either way drop us a line

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