KIEFLER  |  1907-12  |  USA  : The Kiefler is one of the lesser-known names from the remarkably crowded first decade of American motorcycle manufacturing, a period when dozens of small builders were producing machines in workshops across the country. Kiefler

  KIEFT  |  1955 to 1957  |  UK  : The Kieft name on motorcycles and scooters belongs to a man whose primary reputation was built on something entirely different, and the two-wheeled episode in his commercial life is best understood

KIEV  |  1946-2016  |  Russia USSR) & Ukraine  : The Kyiv Motorcycle Plant, known by its Ukrainian initials KMZ, was founded in September 1945 on the site of a former armoured tank repair plant in Kiev. The timing and location

  KILEAR  |  1924-26  |  Czech  : The Kilear was manufactured from 1924 to 1926 as a lightweight machine with a 147cc engine. The same Prague factory also built the large 996cc JAP-engine MC V-twins. A 147cc engine in 1924

  KILLINGER & FREUND  |  1938  |  Germany  : The Killinger and Freund motorcycle occupies a singular place in the history of German engineering: a machine of genuine technical ambition, executed to a refined standard, that never reached the riders

  KING  |  1901-07  |  UK  :          The 1901 census records William King, aged 30, cycle manufacturer, born at Cherry Hinton, living at 30 Sidney Street, Cambridge, with his wife Clara Ann and three young sons. Cherry Hinton is a

  KING  |  1910-15  |  Australia  : King motorcycles were produced in Melbourne, Australia, from 1910 to 1915. The company was known for its light four-stroke motorcycles, which were advertised with the slogan “The King is the Monarch of All.”

  KING-JAP  |  1928-31  |  Germany  : The King-JAP is one of the most straightforwardly named motorcycles in the German historical record: a machine built in Germany, powered by an English engine, carrying a name that announced both facts without

  KINGS OWN  |  1910  |  UK  : Traded as The King’s Own Cycle Works, Cycle and Motor Makers at 111 Southampton Street, London, from 1903 to 1907, according to the South London Trade Directory of 1907. They made bicycles

  KINGSBURY  |  1919-23  |  UK  : The Kingsbury scooter arrived on the market at the same moment as a wave of similar machines, produced by a company that had built aircraft only months before and needed urgently to find

  KINGSLAND  |  1902  |  UK  : The Kingsland takes its name from the north London district in which it was built, and survives in the historical record as a single description of a machine that appeared at the 1902

  KINGSWAY  |  1921-23  |  UK  : The Kingsway was one of many small Coventry-built motorcycles that emerged in the years immediately following the First World War, assembled from proprietary components in what was then still the heartland of British

  KIORA  |  1914  |  Australia  : Kiora motorcycles were manufactured in Adelaide, Australia, in 1914. An advertisement from that year reads: “KIORA MOTOR WORKS, 135 PULTENEY STREET. Builders of the Reliable KIORA MOTOR CYCLE. Jap Engine, any power. Careful

KIRMER  |  1913-17  |  UK  : The Kirmer name is a contraction of the two surnames behind it, and the story it represents is a characteristic episode from Birmingham’s two-wheeled industrial history: a long-established cycle firm making a cautious and

  KITAGAWA  |  1959-59  |  Japan  : The Kitagawa Motor Company belongs to one of the most compressed and turbulent chapters in industrial history: the explosion of Japanese motorcycle manufacturing in the decade following the Second World War, when the

  KITTO | 1901-03 | UK : The Kitto was a British motorcycle produced from 1901 to 1903 by the Kitto Automobile Co. Ltd. of Chiswick, in west London. It was one of the more mechanically distinguished of the pioneer