Iver Johnson

Iver Johnson (official name: The Iver Johnson Company motorcycle division ) was a US manufacturer of firearms , bicycles, and motorcycles between 1871 and 1993.

history

The firearms manufacturer Iver Johnson, named after his co-founder of the company in 1871, has also contributed to the bicycle boom with its coveted two-wheelers since the 1880s. With the construction of a single-cylinder motorcycle, motorcycle production began in Fitchburg ( Massachusetts ) in 1910 , which was largely shaped by the previous bicycle designs and was expanded to include a V-two-cylinder model in 1913 .

The Iver Johnson motorcycles enjoyed a good reputation for their, according to advertising, subtle elegance, combined with excellent mechanics based on the highest manufacturing standards. The advertising slogan was “mechanically perfect” (“technically perfect”). When the leading motorcycle manufacturers offered kick starters and three-speed transmissions around 1915, the old-fashioned pedal drive of his models had a negative effect on Iver Johnson's sales. Not least because of the great demand for firearms at the time, motorcycle production was shut down in 1916.

The Otis Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife in Oxnard ( CA ) had a flawless two-cylinder engine, model 15-7, 1998 in the exhibition The Art of the Motorcycle in the Guggenheim Museum in New York was issued. On October 21, 2006, after Chandler's death, this rarity was auctioned off for the entire vehicle collection.

Models

Single cylinder (from 1910): 31 ci displacement (~ 508 cm³), belt drive, starting with a bicycle pedal.
V-two-cylinder , model 15-7 (from 1913): 62 ci displacement (~ 1016 cm³), bore × stroke 82 × 95 mm, power 7 hp (5 kW ), weight 120 kg, top speed 97 km / h, chain drive or belt, starting with bicycle pedal. Unlike conventional V-engines , in which the connecting rods of a cylinder pair sit on a common crank pin, this engine had two crank pins offset by the cylinder angle so that the pistons move synchronously and reach their dead centers at the same time . This results in an even firing sequence and even power delivery, accompanied by the typical exhaust sound of a parallel twin engine. Six copies of the V-two-cylinder should still exist today.

Web links

Illustrated description of Iver-Johnson Model 15-7 (English)
Iver Johnson Model 15-7 auction price

Individual evidence

↑ Brigitte Ortmann (from English), Motorcycles Past and Present , p 76, EFB Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hanau, 1st edition 1984, ISBN 3-88776-020-4
^ ^A ^b Exhibition catalog, The Art of the Motorcycle , pp. 128–130, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1998, curator: Thomas Krens
^ John Scheibe, Vintage car auction at the Otis Chandler Museum of Transportation in Oxnard fetches a record $ 36.8 million Ventura County Star , October 22, 2006. Retrieved December 16, 2010.

[1] Brigitte Ortmann (from English), Motorcycles Past and Present , p 76, EFB Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hanau, 1st edition 1984, ISBN 3-88776-020-4

[Aus-2] A ^b Exhibition catalog, The Art of the Motorcycle , pp. 128–130, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1998, curator: Thomas Krens

[3] John Scheibe, Vintage car auction at the Otis Chandler Museum of Transportation in Oxnard fetches a record $ 36.8 million Ventura County Star , October 22, 2006. Retrieved December 16, 2010.