Rebirth Of A Legend
The Overhead Cam Excelsior
By Pete Gagan

In 2004 I made the long drive to Davenport with my friend, Paul Brodie, as company. Paul is a brilliant fabricator of things in metal whom I had met through vintage road racing. His background is building expensive, exotic bicycles, and from which he has branched off into building motorcycle racing frames. His first "antique" contract was to build the frame for my 1912 Blackhawk, and other early frames such as my 1900 Orient, 1895 Pennington, 1896 Roper and Dick Winger's 1912 Curtiss Marvel. Thanks to Paul, I have been able to complete a lot of otherwise hopeless projects. I suggested we deliver Dick's Curtiss frame to Davenport, so he could, maybe, get a bit of business and learn what the AMCA was all about. He swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, and joined up.

On the way back from Davenport, he said, "I'd like to build a complete bike. What do you think?" "Well," says I, "There are already guys building 8-Valve Harleys, 8-Valve Indians, camel back Indians, early Hendersons, strap tank Harleys and even Crockers. It's always mystified me why no one has attempted a Cyclone, so that might be one to consider. The only problem is that there are already Cyclones out there, and we would be compromising the integrity of those originals and nothing in particular would be accomplished for history. (What about compromising the integrity of 8-Valve Harleys, 8-Valve Indians, camel back Indians, early Hendersons, strap tank Harleys and Crockers?... Ed) The ultimate project would be to recreate the overhead cam Excelsior, an example of which has not been seen since 1920." Frankly, to me this was a mere pipe dream, but I underestimated Paul. He was serious.

The following account, cribbed directly from Ed Youngblood's excellent website, www.motohistory.net, tells the story of the OHC Excelsior.

"By the late teens, Excelsior was falling behind Indian and Harley-Davidson on the racetrack, and Ignaz Schwinn recruited John "Jock" McNeil to design a new works racing engine. McNeil brought to the project what he had learned as a former development engineer and rider for Cyclone. The similarities between the Cyclone and the Excelsior are evident.

"McNeil had an engineering assistant named Bob Perry, who was also captain of the Excelsior racing team. Perry had a special relationship with the Schwinn family. They funded his education at the University of Illinois and generally treated him like a son. Schwinn envisioned Perry as a future executive in the company and did not want him to return to racing after he earned his degree. But Perry wanted to race and was on hand to ride one of the OHC machines in its debut at Ascot Park on January 4, 1920. The Excelsior team arrived early for testing and discovered that the powerful new engine performed like it could fulfill Schwinn's hopes for a racer that would beat the Indian and Harley-Davidson works machines. On January 3 it was announced that Perry would ride the Excelsior on full throttle around the Ascot oval. He crashed and was killed when he lost control entering a turn at a speed estimated between 95 and 100 miles per hour.

"Schwinn was devastated. The Excelsior team withdrew from the Ascot event, and a story emerged that in his grief, Ignaz Schwinn went into the racing shop and personally destroyed the overhead cam engines. However, in his book American Racing Motorcycles, Jerry Hatfield reports that Gene Rhyne, Excelsior's top hill climber during the late 1920s, remembers seeing three of the OHC machines gathering dust at the factory in 1930. There are other reports that occasionally the motorcycles were seen in competition after 1920, but no further serious development went into the project."

We were unable to find much more info on the bikes and a few photos of Perry's bike at a front angle. No shots of the left hand side. Undaunted, Paul Brodie made up a full-sized drawing of the whole machine, using the size measurements of the wheel rims, 28' x 2," and the standard 1919 Excelsior crankcases acquired from Dick Winger. The remaining dimensions were determined from extrapolating off digitally enhanced blowups of the photos. The frame is unique, due to the height of the engine and the gas tanks (in two halves) are like nothing seen on other racing Excelsiors.

Although inspired by the Cyclone, the engine differs considerably, as, no doubt, McNeil recognized its shortcomings and made some improvements. The Cyclone, although very quick when running, had weak valve gear. McNeil did away with Cyclone's stirrup arrangement for opening the valves, and used rockers operating on the top of the valve stems as in more modern practice. Also, the Cyclone's intake tract was a bit restrictive, but not the new Excelsior. With the hindsight of modern technology, a bit of flow bench work, and robust roller cams, this thing should really go. Also, it weighs less than 200 pounds soaking wet.

Rather than go into the minute detail on Paul's actual 18-month total dedication to the construction of the machine above, visit his website, www.flashbackfab.com The bike, as it is today, is a pattern machine from which engine castings will be made. The plan is to have the first machine done for the concourse at Half Moon Bay in 2007. And to have a racer running and ready, for the board track class at Davenport in 2007. It will sound awesome, and will likely develop over 50 horsepower. I plan to be the first kid on my block with one.