We tend to think of the four-cylinder motorcycle engine as a modern development in motorcycling, presuming that the motorcycle engine as a concept started out as the simplest expression of then-current technology at the beginning of the 20th century and progressing from there.

However, while the vast majority of early motorcycle engines were indeed single cylinder designs, surprisingly, the first four-cylinder engine arrived not in the late 60s but in 1905, courtesy of Belgian company FN. The American manufacturers then took up the four cylinder reins up to the 30s but then, the inline four fell out of favor for road bikes for a time, while gaining increasing relevance in racing until Honda revealed its CB750 in 1969 which forced answers out of the competition.

Related: 2023 Kawasaki Z H2 Review: You Better Hang On Tight

10 FN Four: 1905

FN Four studio shot
FN
FN Four facing right

Fabrique Nationale was founded in 1889 to manufacture ammunition and turned to motorcycle manufacture in 1901. In 1905, FN launched the Four model, powered by the world’s first production inline four cylinder motorcycle engine (but not the world’s first four cylinder motorcycle engine: that honor goes to Henry Holden, who manufactured a boxer-four engine in 1897).

Capable of 40 mph, the FN Four was the worlds fastest production motorcycle up to 1912. The engine was mounted longitudinally in the frame, enabling the rear wheel to be driven by shaft. Displacement was originally 350cc, but this grew to 498cc and then 748cc. The FN Four remained in production to 1923 and inspired American motorcycle manufacturers to produce their own four-cylinder engines.

9 Pierce Four: 1909

Pierce Four studio shot
Pierce
Pierce Four in black, facing right

The Pierce Four, launched in 1909, was the first inline four-cylinder motorcycle produced in America. George N Pierce had a light engineering company that branched out into bicycles in 1892. His son, Percy, head of the Pierce Cycle Company and tasked with starting motorcycle production, traveled to Europe and purchased an FN Four, which was shipped to the U.S. and served as a reference for the Pierce Four.

The Pierce Four was recognized by its use of large diameter frame tubes that carried the oil and fuel. The 696cc inline four-cylinder engine was a stressed member of the frame and a shaft took drive to the rear wheel. The business numbers didn’t add up, however, and the Pierce Motorcycle Company went bankrupt after building fewer than 500 motorcycles.

8 Honda RC181: 1966

Honda RC181 studio shot
Honda
Honda RC181 in red and silver, facing right

While it was the Italian teams of Gilera and MV Agusta who challenged the prevailing single-cylinder racing engine thought in the early 1950s, with their sophisticated, gear-driven DOHC inline four-cylinder engines, it was the Japanese who took the racing multi-cylinder thought to its apogee. With their jewel-like twin cylinder 50cc, four-cylinder 250 and 350cc and six-cylinder 250cc engines their development was second to none.

But the big ticket in terms of publicity was the 500cc class, and for that, Honda built the RC181, with an inline four-cylinder engine developing 90 horsepower. Unfortunately, Honda, along with the rest of the Japanese factories, thought that more speed came solely from more power and neglected to develop the frames as much as the engine, to the extent that Mike Hailwood’s Honda 500 was not affectionately nicknamed the ‘Bronco’ as it bucked and weaved around the circuits of the day. In light of what came three years later from Honda, the RC181 is hugely significant.

Related: Here’s Your Chance To Take Home The Scintillating 2002 Ducati MH900 Evoluzione

7 Honda CB750: 1969

Honda CB750 studio shot
Honda
Honda CB750 in red, facing right

Twin cylinder engines ruled production motorcycles for decades - the American V-Twins and the British parallel twins. The only problem is that they were aging designs and the companies themselves were complacent in the face of a misunderstood challenge from Japan. If they thought that the likes of Honda and Kawasaki would concentrate on smaller capacity motorcycles, leaving Triumph and Harley-Davidson to the larger displacement classes, then that was all turned upside down with the arrival of the Honda CB750 in 1969. Relatively simple with a single overhead camshaft operating two valves per cylinder, it was smooth, powerful, oil tight, and came with an electric starter, it immediately made everything else look old-fashioned: the future had arrived.

6 MV Agusta 750 S: 1970

MV Agusta 750S studio shot
MV Agusta
MV Agusta 750S in blue and red, facing right

Huge racing success put MV Agusta motorcycles on the map, but the factory never fully capitalized, preferring a high-end, exclusive approach to selling motorcycles, at least as the 60s turned into the 70s. Until the advent of its inline three cylinder racing engine, all MV Agusta GP bikes had been powered by four-cylinder engines, and it was to this configuration that the company turned for their large capacity road bikes.

They were superb pieces of engineering, with a crankshaft built up from nine separate pieces, running in six main bearings, with drive to the double overhead camshafts via gears from the crank. Primary drive was also by gears and final drive by shaft. They were hugely expensive, both to buy and maintain, but also impossibly exotic and desirable.

5 Kawasaki Z1: 1972

Kawasaki Z1 studio shot
Kawasaki
Kawasaki Z1 in green, facing right

As has happened so often in Honda’s rich history, where it led, others followed and improved. After the success of the CB750, Honda’s Japanese rivals set to work and the first out of the blocks was Kawasaki with the Z1 900. If it wasn’t the first production inline four-cylinder engine with double overhead camshafts - that honor goes to MV Agusta although its road bikes were rare, hugely expensive and difficult to maintain - it was the first Japanese bike so equipped and less than half the price of the MV Agusta. Kawasaki had actually started design of a 750cc four in the late 1960s but, after the launch of the Honda CB750, Kawasaki chose to continue to develop the Z1’s engine and enlarge it to 903cc, giving it a top speed of 130mph from 82 horsepower. A new motorcycle ‘war’ had commenced.

4 BMW K100: 1982

 BMW K100 static shot
BMW
BMW K100 in white, facing left

Throughout the 1970s, BMW persevered with its boxer twin engine, but it was clear the motorcycling scene was changing. Emissions regulations were getting tighter, favoring multiple small cylinders, the Japanese four-cylinder engines were smooth and fast, and an obsession with top speed was creeping into public consciousness, fueled by the motorcycling press.

BMW needed to react and, true to form, its solution was radical. Taking an inline four-cylinder engine from a Peugeot 104, BMW installed it in the frame, laid flat, with the longitudinal crankshaft on the right and the cylinder head on the left. This not only lowered the center of gravity but allowed BMW to retain its shaft drive. Affectionately nicknamed ‘The Brick’, the K100 and its three-cylinder brother, the K75, lasted until 1992.

Related: This 1985 Peugeot 205 Could Have Helped Turbocharge Peugeot's Future

3 Yamaha R1: 1998

Yamaha R1 studio shot
Yamaha
Yamaha R1 in red and white, facing right

Yet again, Honda led the way with the CBR900RR FireBlade of 1992: light, nimble, powerful. It took Yamaha six years, but the resulting YZF-R1 blew the Honda into the weeds. While Honda had concentrated on chassis lightness and stiffness, Yamaha made the engine of the R1 the star attraction, while also looking long and hard at the chassis. The 998cc inline four-cylinder engine sported five valves per cylinder and had crisp fueling and stinking mid-range power, not to mention 150 horsepower.

It was also, thanks to a transmission stacked directly behind the cylinder block, extremely short, which helped the engineers package the rest of the bike much more efficiently. The cylinders and crankcase were cast as one, making the engine extremely stiff and able to form a stressed member of the chassis, which as a result, could be lighter. It was a huge leap forward in engine design and the reverberations can still be felt today.

2 Suzuki Hayabusa: 1999

Suzuki Hayabusa riding shot
Suzuki
Suzuki Hayabusa riding right to left

In the mid-1990s, a top speed war erupted between the Japanese manufacturers. Honda kicked off with the CBR1100XX Super Blackbird which achieved a top speed of 195mph. Suzuki then responded with the Hayabusa that reached 197mph. To rub it in, Hayabusa in Japanese means ‘peregrine falcon’, the fastest diving bird in nature. It also feeds on blackbirds…

Both the CBR and the Hayabusa relied on good old cubic inches to create sufficient power: the 1299cc of the Hayabusa was at the time the largest displacement engine ever in a sport bike. But the real significance of the Hayabusa is that it forced the Japanese manufacturers, afraid of a backlash and certain banning of these super fast bikes by the Europeans, to cooperate and agree in 2000 on a voluntary top speed limit of 186mph (300 km/h). Thus, the 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa was the fastest production motorcycle of the 20th century.

1 Kawasaki Ninja H2: 2014

Kawasaki Ninja H2 studio shot
Kawasaki
Kawasaki Ninja H2 in silver/grey/green, facing right

Motorcycle manufacturers have often toyed with forced induction to increase power without having to significantly re-engineer a particular engine. BMW were arguably the most successful with its pre-war supercharged boxer twins but, since then, it has been the exhaust gas-driven turbocharger that has been experimented with more often, if not to any great extent.

Then Kawasaki launched the Ninja H2, with a supercharged, 1000cc inline four-cylinder engine capable of producing 228 horsepower in road legal form, or 310 horsepower in track-only H2R form. The resulting bike was necessarily long and heavy and so not nearly as nimble as its liter bike rivals but as a flagship and technical tour de force, it put Kawasaki right into the limelight.