ASK THE MXPERTS: WAS THERE A MOTOCROSS BIKE CALLED THE AMERICAN EAGLE?

Dear MXperts,
Was there ever a bike by the name of American Eagle? My friend said his dad owned one but that it had a Husqvarna engine. Is this a real bike?

There have been lots of marketing schemes for everything from jeans to Harley-Davidsons to bicycles named American Eagle, but your friend’s dad could have owned an actual American Eagle motocross bike that was imported into the USA by Honda/Suzuki guru Jack McCormack. After leaving Honda, McCormack started American Eagle in 1967. Interestingly, American Eagle was funded after Jack McCormick successfully sued Suzuki for dropping him as the American Suzuki distributor and taking over themselves.

American Eagle Motorcycles didn’t build anything or own a factory; instead, Jack private-labeled motorcycles and engines from a variety of sources. American Eagle-branded bikes included a 750cc Laverda twin and a wide range of motocross bikes (all built in Birmingham, England, at the Sprite factory). At its height, American Eagle had 100 dealers. American Eagle motocross bikes used Kawasaki, Sachs, Zundapp and Montesa engines.

The American Eagle was a private-label bike built at Sprite Developments in Oldbury, England, by former racer Frank Hipkin. Brits could buy the bike as the Sprite 405 Talon. Americans were offered the bike as the American Eagle 405 Talon. Australians knew it as the Alron 405, and Belgians thought it was the BVM 405. All the bikes were identical, with the exception of the American bikes having “American Eagle” cast into the engine case. Amazingly, all the different national distributors tried to pretend that the Sprites were designed in their home countries. It wasn’t until many years later that each country learned the truth about the “other” Sprites.

Originally, Sprite sold a kit bike that was a rolling chassis, sans engine, to avoid Great Britain’s purchase tax. But, they switched to fully assembled machines for export. Amazingly enough, if Frank Hipkin had kept the Sprite motorcycle company small, he might have lasted longer. Success killed the American Eagle, Sprite, Talon, Alron and BVM. When Hipkin started exporting Sprites in large numbers, the British government closed the tax loopholes that Sprite was using and, following the collapse of the U.S. American Eagle distributor (Galaxy Wholesale in Garden Grove, California), the financial losses were too great for Sprite Development to absorb.

The best known of these bikes was the $1,195 American Eagle 405 Talon. It came with an engine that was itself a clone. It was an Italian-built copy of a late-1960s, four-speed, 399c Husqvarna engine. Many Husqvarna parts would fit in the Italian engine but not all. Brad Lackey got his start on an American Eagle and Evel Knievel used to jump one. American Eagle went out of business in 1972, but the left-over stock was sold through mail-order advertising for massively discounted prices. 

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