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Pure Excellence
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Excelsior 7SC
Ray Thursby
03/01/2006
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Photography by David Gooley
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The downside of this modification was that each cylinder would tend
to spray oil out the hole when the piston reached the top of its stroke, making
riding a messy proposition. That counted for less among racers than speed,
though spewing oil onto the track surface could cause problems.
By the time
its first single-cylinder machines were produced in 1905, Excelsior had been
building bicycles and offering parts to other manufacturers for nearly 30 years.
After five years of single-cylinder models, which also employed the F-head valve
layout, it produced a fast V-twin in 1910 that became the first of the marque’s
successful racers.
One of those who noted Excelsior’s ever-growing success
was Ignaz Schwinn.
Schwinn, a German immigrant, had established Arnold,
Schwinn & Co. in 1895 to manufacture bicycles. In its first year of
operation, Schwinn sold some 250,000 bicycles. A portion of the company’s
profits were used to build experimental automobiles and at least one motorcycle.
Ultimately, Schwinn chose a more direct entrance into the powered-cycle market
by purchasing Excelsior outright in 1911.
With solid financial backing,
Excelsior soon ranked with Indian and Harley-Davidson as a top motorcycle
manufacturer. Production capacity was increased further in 1917, when Schwinn
added the resources of Henderson Motorcycle to his empire. Military and other
government contracts ramped up sales, and profits increased steadily through the
roaring ’20s. Both motorcycle lines grew increasingly sophisticated over the
years, with Excelsior offering its legendary SuperX high-performance model in
1925, and Henderson the modernistic Streamline cruiser in 1929.
In fact, even
as the Depression gripped the world in the early 1930s, the future of
Excelsior-Henderson seemed solid. To everyone, that is, save Ignaz Schwinn. In
early 1931, he decided to separate the motorcycle and bicycle businesses,
handing control of the former to his son. Frank Schwinn was not interested in
motorcycles, however, and so, without regard for his dealer network, a
substantial backlog of orders, or his employees, Ignaz Schwinn ordered a
shutdown of the Excelsior and Henderson factories on March 31, 1931. Production
ended that same day.
It is a tribute to the value of the Excelsior-Henderson
legend that the name was chosen in 1994 to adorn an all-new motorcycle. The
modern Excelsior-Henderson SuperX entered production in 1998, but fewer than
2,000 came off the assembly line before the company that had formed to build
them tumbled into bankruptcy.
That eventual failure certainly casts no shadow
on the 1914 7SC, however. As seen here after a painstaking restoration by Steve
Wright of Atascadero, Calif., it stands as one of the fastest, and most
desirable, motorcycles of its day—a tribute on two wheels to the vision of Ignaz
Schwinn, the skill of the men who designed and built it, and the talent and
bravery of those who raced it.
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