A 2000 Excelsior-Henderson Super X Deadwood Special. Owner: Chris Backs, Santa Maria, California. Photos by the author.
Back in the early 1990s the Hanlon brothers, of Belle Plaine, Minnesota, looked at the Harley market and saw that the boom in sales had people waiting six months or more to get a bike. So they decided to give Harley a little competition by resurrecting an old American marque. A con-man named Phillip Zanghi had been raising millions in an effort to bring the Indian brand back to life (he failed), so the Hanlons decided to focus on the little-remembered Excelsior-Henderson, the third largest American motorcycle company when it went out of business in 1931, leaving only Harley and Indian in the market.
Back in the late 1920s E-H built two very different motorcycles, a V-twin Excelsior and an in-line four Henderson. This began in 1911 when bicycle-maker Ignatz Schwinn decided to branch out into the motorcycle business and bought the Excelsior Company. Six years later the Henderson brothers sold him their company, which was making the four. The last rendition of the Excelsior V-twin was in 1925, called the Super-X, while the Henderson Model KJ, a four, appeared in 1930. However, with the onset of the Great Depression Schwinn chose to shut down production of his motorcycle business. Apparently nobody had the rights to the trademark, as the Hanlons made no mention of paying anyone for the use of it. The Excelsior-Henderson name sits between the springer fork stan...