Silly and Unusual Motorcycle Names, 9-17

From a Silver Pigeon to a Wackwitz, the silly and unusual motorcycle names just keep coming. See the rest of our list below.

9. Silver Pigeon

From 1946 to 1964, these scooters were quite popular in Japan, but it's hard to imagine the name would fly in the States.

10. Genial-Lucifer

Like jumbo shrimp, the two words just don't seem to go together. Nevertheless, this French builder of small to midsize motorcycles managed to tough it out for 28 years (1928-1956), which is more than can be said for most upstarts of the period.

11. Juncker

Blame it on the language barrier, but there's no way this small French bike of the 1930s would have sold very well in the States.

12. Sissy

An Austrian company chose this name to grace a mini-scooter that lasted only one year (1957). What were they thinking?

13. RIP

Seemingly doomed from the start, this English motorcycle company was born in 1905 and gone by 1909. May it rest in peace.

14. Flying Merkel

Ridiculous as its moniker sounds, this big American bike of the early 1900s lived up to its billing, as Flying Merkels set several speed records thanks to their advanced V-twin engines.

15. Harley-Davidson Fat Boy

One of Harley-Davidson's best sellers, the Fat Boy is a beefy motorcycle, originally offered in 1990 on the company's big softail frame with a large 1340-cc V-twin engine and unique solid wheels. This bulky bike is still sold today in an even "fatter" 1584-cc form.

16. Whizzer Pacemaker

In the years after World War II, Whizzer offered a three-horsepower engine that could be bolted to a conventional bicycle to turn it into a rudimentary form of motorized transport. "Put a Whizzer on it!" trumpeted the ads, and thousands did. The company soon came out with a complete motorbike, the Whizzer Pacemaker, which some credit with starting the scooter revolution that led to the company's demise in the mid-1950s.

17. Wackwitz

Perhaps in its native Germany the name isn't so amusing, but this early 1920s maker of small "clip on" engines (much like those sold by Whizzer) lasted only two years. And one can imagine why: "Put a Wackwitz on it!" just doesn't have the same ring.

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

Helen Davies, Marjorie Dorfman, Mary Fons, Deborah Hawkins, Martin Hintz, Linnea Lundgren, David Priess, Julia Clark Robinson, Paul Seaburn, Heidi Stevens, and Steve Theunissen