Charles Lindbergh’s 1920 Excelsior X Motorcycle
Charles Lindbergh is best known for making the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927 in the Spirit of St. Louis. Before becoming an airplane pilot, he spent a fair amount of time riding a 1920 Excelsior “X” motorcycle. It carried him to college in Wisconsin, south to Kentucky and Florida, and to flight school in Nebraska.
An Excelsior from a Little Falls hardware store
Lindbergh bought the twin-cylinder Excelsior through Martin Engstrom’s hardware store in his hometown of Little Falls, Minnesota. He later remembered taking delivery in 1919, according to restorer Theodore A. Hodgdon. The Henry Ford lists it as a 1920 model built in 1919, although the museum gives the purchase year as 1920.
Lindbergh had graduated from high school in 1918 and spent the following years farming before entering college. The reported purchase price of the Excelsior was $290.
Local accounts describe his fast and sometimes reckless riding around Little Falls. One story has Lindbergh using a shortcut past a power plant and along the steep banks of the Mississippi River. The owner of the power plant was concerned that Lindbergh would ride off the bank and into the river, so he blocked the trail, forcing him to take a safer route into town.
What motorcycle did Lindbergh ride?
Excelsior specialist Gene Harper identifies Lindbergh’s motorcycle as a 1920 Series 20R. It belonged to the Excelsior V-twin family commonly called the “Big X,” with a 61-cubic-inch engine, roughly 1,000 cc. The Excelsior Motor Manufacturing & Supply Company built the motorcycles in Chicago.
Excelsior was one of the major American motorcycle manufacturers of the period, competing with Harley-Davidson and Indian. Bicycle manufacturer Ignaz Schwinn owned the business and added Henderson’s four-cylinder motorcycles when he bought that company in 1917.
Lindbergh’s machine predates the smaller, approximately 750 cc Super X introduced in 1925. That later model appears in the photographs of the Pine to Palm riders heading from Winnipeg toward California.
According to Gene Harper, the Series 20R was the non-electric version, without the electric lighting and horn supplied on the Series 20S. The restored motorcycle has a gas headlamp.
From Wisconsin to Kentucky and Florida in 1921
In the fall of 1920, Lindbergh rode from Little Falls to Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin. He enrolled in engineering and joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He used the Excelsior for trips between home and college.
On June 19, 1921, he left Madison, passed through Milwaukee and continued toward Chicago. There he joined college friends O’Connor and Drewry, who were traveling in a Ford Model T speedster. Their first major destination was Camp Knox, Kentucky, for ROTC field-artillery training.
In a letter to his mother, transcribed by Harper, Lindbergh described repairs in Chicago and a puncture on the road to Indianapolis. At night, he rode ahead of the Ford using its headlights to see the road. When he accelerated beyond their beam, he ran into a road barricade. Later, on wet clay, he had to slide a shoe along each side of the motorcycle to keep it upright.
After the training period, Lindbergh continued south through Tennessee and Georgia to Jacksonville, Florida, hoping to meet his father. They failed to connect, and he headed home by a more westerly route through Alabama and the central states. According to Harper, he arrived back in Little Falls on August 6 with the motorcycle in need of an overhaul.
The Antique Motorcycle Club of America estimates the journey at about 3,000 miles; Harper’s reconstruction of the route puts it closer to 3,600.
Stuck in the mud on the way to flight school
In the spring of 1922, Lindbergh rode the Excelsior to Lincoln, Nebraska, to attend the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation’s flight school. The program included aircraft construction and maintenance as well as flying.
Spring rain made for poor road conditions, and the Excelsior got stuck in the mud eight miles northeast of New Glarus, Wisconsin. The Minnesota Historical Society dates these two photographs to March 27, 1922.
On April 7, 1922, Lindbergh took his first flight as a passenger, with Otto Timm at the controls of a Lincoln Standard Tourabout. He did not fly solo at the school, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. He later took up barnstorming.
Other motorcyclists of the 1920s
Riders such as Cannon Ball Baker were setting motorcycle endurance records and riding for manufacturers. In Britain, T.E. Lawrence, known for his role in the Arab Revolt, owned a series of Brough Superior motorcycles and wrote about his riding.
The Excelsior’s restoration at The Henry Ford
Lindbergh kept the Excelsior for more than two decades before donating it to The Henry Ford in 1943. He and Henry Ford were friends. The motorcycle had already been sandblasted and varnished in 1931, according to the museum’s records.
The museum dates the restoration to 1961. Hodgdon described the work in the July–August 1974 issue of Antique Automobile.
In his firsthand restoration account, Hodgdon explained that the motorcycle arrived at the BSA shops in Nutley, New Jersey, where he was president of BSA’s U.S. factory branch. A toolbox came from Earl Chalfant, a rear-chain guard from John Scharle, and another missing guard had to be made by hand. The work restored the deep-blue finish, gray wheels, gold striping and Excelsior markings.
Hodgdon reported that photographs of the finished motorcycle reminded Lindbergh of the Excelsior he had first received at Engstrom’s store.