steampunkvehicles:

In 1967, a plumber doing a building rehab on Paulina St. in Cicero, IL tore down a brick wall and found this mysterious, one-of-a-kind motorcycle bearing 1917 plates.  The building’s elderly owner admitted that his son had stolen the bike before going off to WWI, never to return.  According to the bike’s current owner (and regular rider):

Everything inside the engine is just magnificent. The pistons are hand made, and have gap-less cast iron rings, the engineering and machining being simply years ahead of their time…. [it] doesn’t use any other form of gasket anywhere in the engine as it is so perfectly machined… the rear brake reveals a dual-acting single cam system/twin brake system [that] has never been used on any other American motorcycle.

Power is provide by a beautifully crafted 78 cubic inch V-twin engine, which features a 4-inch stroke, and 3-½ inch bore.

….two clutch levers, what could have been the first three-speed gearbox on an American motorcycle…two separate neutral positions between first and second gear and between second and third gear…no photographs, no documentation, or anyone claiming to have any knowledge of its existence, no public record of any Traub motorcycle company.

http://motorcycling.speedtv.com/article/history-the-mystery-of-the-traub/

At the Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, North Carolina

everything about this story is so creepy and weird and awesome

no record of the motorcycle company wtf

(via sollyforth)