The first generally recognized motorcycle speed records were set unofficially by
Glenn Curtiss, using engines of his own manufacture, first in 1903, when he achieved at
Yonkers, New York using a
V-twin, and then on January 24, 1907, on
Ormond Beach,
Florida, when he achieved using a
V8 housed in a spindly tube chassis with direct shaft drive to the rear wheel. An attempted return run was foiled when his drive shaft came loose at speed, yet he was able to wrestle the machine to a stop without injury. The
Curtiss V-8 motorcycle is currently in the Transportation collection of the
Smithsonian Institution; a replica was presented in 2025. Curtiss's 1907 record was for a few years the fastest speed any person had ever travelled under power: the
rail record stood at , achieved in Germany when in 1903 electric powered
Experimental three-phase railcars of AEG and Siemens competed. First
motor car records had been set in the 1890s by
battery electric cars, then bettered by ICE-powered automobiles to 109 mph in 1905, beating steam locomotives. At the time, Europeans used roads in France or beaches in Belgium that soon were too short. The opening of the
Brooklands banked oval did not help much regarding overall speed records, as the
Blitzen Benz cars were limited by the track in 1909. On long beaches in Florida, a steam car made to win the record did so in 1906, at , but both the steamer and Curtiss were beaten when the Benz cars arrived there in 1911. In the air, airships were to big to be fast, and airplanes barely did fly in public before 1906. The
Wright Brothers claimed to have achieved in 1905, and resumed flying only in 1908, after
air speed records officially recognized by FAI had been set in France. Airplanes gained speed in the early 1910, catching up to land vehicles, then the war broke out. Afterwards, airplanes always were faster, aided by lower drag in altitude, and some vehicles used aircraft powerplants. The first officially sanctioned
Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) record was set in 1920, when Gene Walker rode an
Indian on
Daytona Beach at . Curtiss in 1907 had used a large 4-liter V8 aircraft engine not practical for riding on public roads, and it failed on the return run. The first FIM-sanctioned record to exceed his speed did not occur until 1930, at
Arpajon in France, when an
OEC special with a 1,000cc supercharged
JAP V-twin engine averaged over the required two-way runs. The 1930s saw an international battle between the
BMWs ridden by
Ernst Henne and various JAP-powered British motorcycles, with the penultimate pre-
World War II record being taken in 1937 by Italy's
Gilera, shortly before BMW set a final pre-war record of that stood for 14 years. After World War II, the German
NSU factory battled Britain's
Vincent HRD and
Triumph for top speed honors during the 1950s. The Germans, both customers and manufacturers, soon moved over to the automobile market, and British-engined machines dominated the 1960s records. New Zealand's
Burt Munro (of the film ''The World's Fastest Indian''), set a speed record at Bonneville in 1967 of for a motorcycle with an engine under 1000cc. A Japanese-engined
streamliner motorcycle first took the record in 1970, and alternated with
Harley-Davidson-engined machines as record-holders until 1990, when
Dave Campos's streamliner powered by twin Harley-Davidson engines averaged . That record stood for 16 years before being surpassed in 2006 by the
Ack Attack team's twin
Suzuki engined machine at an average of . The
BUB team, using a custom-built V4 engine, then alternated as record holders with Ack Attack over the next four years. As of April 2026, the Ack Attack team has held the motorcycle land speed record at since late 2010. ==Jet-engine trike==