Customer Reviews

Standard Catalog of American Motorcycles 1898-1981: The Only Book to Fully Chronicle Every Bike Ever Built

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

To be brief: This is a wonderful book for those who love the really old and rare motorcycles of the pre-WW2 era. I don't know of anything else in print which even comes close to the scope and depth of this work. So buy a copy!

Unfortunately, the other, more critical reviewers are also correct: there are surprising gaps in this historical review - even where the author obviously intended to provide the missing material - and there are errors of fact. The publisher needs to hire some better editors, and the author really should produce a corrected, more genuinely comprehensive 2nd edition ASAP.

My greatest disappointment with this edition was the book's cheap paperback production: The content, mostly old ads and photos of really rare bikes, fully deserves glossy paper and the highest quality reproductions to preserve this information. I personally would be happy to pay twice as much for such a volume.

But all criticisms aside, what we have here is still invaluable. If you are a fan of old mototcycles, you will want this book - even in such a flawed edition.

The book in general is full of inaccuracies. For example, the section on the Rokon Trail-breaker is mostly fiction. The author attributes the creation of the Trail-breaker to J.B. Nethercutt and his two sons. This is absolutely false. Charles Fehn of Thousand Oaks, California invented it not the Nethercutts. Nethercutt owned the company that was its first mass producer not its inventor.

I purchase this item mainly as a reference tool for an upcoming
art project that has storytelling pages which would include
motorcycles from the 1930's. What I got was an excellent
bargain and a great book with amazing detail.

I admire the history of the American Motorcycle and the pictures
this volume display. It's very useful as a tribute to the
early invention of the vehicle and shows wonderful progression
to what we know today as the modern motorcycle.

Excellent book to have on hand to learn and explore,regardless
of whether you like motorcycles or not.

I just received this book as a Father's Day Gift and I spent a couple of hours going through it. If you are into older American bikes this is a treasure of info that any restoration guy would love. Lots of pictures, ads and old photos, sadly none in color, but that's my only snivel. This should be in every antique bike fans library as a excellant resource if only for the pictures alone.

I was very disappointed when I got my book and on the cover wasn't the 1937 Harley as it showed when I ordered it, but an Indian. What's with that?