Demand for Power, Environmental Concerns Drive New Technology for V-Twins
Courtesy: S&S Cycle

S&S Cycle opened their doors in 1958. At that time, the performance motorcycle business was a lot different. George Smith figured out how a few lighter parts could make a bike go faster and everyone wanted them. Soon he was rebuilding stock engines into drag strip monsters and setting new records at Bonneville. Tuning a bike for absolute performance was the only concern he had. The more performance parts he built, the more the industry wanted. The birth of v-twin performance seemed to come along as S&S grew in reputation. Smith kept pushing forward, developing more and more components that increased performance and replaced their stock counterparts.

As the second generation of Smith family members took the reigns at S&S, a new line of products came to life—almost every performance component you could think of, and then, complete engines. The release of these engines—the 96ci was first— coupled with the extreme shortage of Harley-Davidson® motorcycles brought the business of production custom motorcycles to life. If you were involved in the motorcycle industry during the early ‘90s, you must remember the sheer excitement that crate 96ci S&S engines brought! Suddenly there was a way to build a radical custom with a powerful engine that also offered significant reliability. But that wasn’t enough for S&S. Soon there was the incredibly potent 113ci engine, followed by the massive 124ci. S&S was helping the motorcycle industry grow with leaps and bounds.

To transition from the second generation to the third generation of S&S leadership, the family embarked on a project the scale of which was never seen in the aftermarket motorcycle world—the S&S 145-Tribute engine. This project, the biggest production engine on the market was a sure way to help the third generation get a solid foothold on the industry. Everyone wanted a 145—and why not? A well-tuned version could deliver close to 200 rear wheel horsepower and the engine came along about the same time as did 240mm and 250mm rear tires. Traction was available for the big inch engine and the aftermarket jumped on it.

The production custom world literally exploded at the start of this millennium. This rapid growth and the increased number of custom bikes on the road brought the third generation of Smith family members a whole new concern—tightening EPA laws. Knowing the EPA laws would tighten later in the decade, then S&S CFO Brett Smith proposed a new direction to the senior management team in 2002. Smith, along with former VP of Product Development, Geoff Burgess, wanted S&S to design, engineer and manufacture a proprietary engine that would keep air-cooled, pushrod v-twin fans happy for a long time to come. With the Board of Director’s support, Smith and Burgess sat down with a small group of S&S Product Development team members and explained their thoughts in October of 2002. The plan was to complete the 145-Tribute Project and then push forward on the then unnamed project.