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Orphan brands
2000 American Quantum
(Guy 'Guido' Allen, June 2025)
It's very late 1990s,
going on for year 2000, and there's a weird optimism
in the air for reviving, or even creating,
motorcycle brands.
The then poorly-funded
owner of Norton was allegedly producing a V8. The
deeply flawed prototype only now looks like running
properly – some 25 years later. See the Allen
Millyard series on that.
Indian had
been revived as a marque and
was to go through bankruptcy and a couple of owners
before things settled down.
Of course there was Victory Motorcycles,
which got killed off by owner Polaris in favour of
Indian.
Excelsior
Henderson made a brief
appearance and keeled over.
Then there was a new
brand, namely American (yep, really...) which launched
with a few variants on a Harley-like platform, but
running a 96-cube (1573cc) S&S motor with bespoke
four-valve heads. The latter was a major tech upgrade.
One of its models was
this, the Quantum, and the info on how many were made
is absent. So too is any reliable third-party review.
That said, the theory
was they could produce 100hp which, if true, was well
ahead of the two-valve equivalents of the day that
made more like 70-80hp.
If you were about to set
up a museum of obscure motorcycles, you might want
this one for the foyer.
See the
auction listing at Hemmings.
And our
Indian Chief Vintage 2009 story, which runs
through the ownership progression.
Plus the Victory Motorcycles V-twin profile.
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