All American-Vs refer to history in some form or other. Their very names evoke a former golden age of motorcycling, and even newcomers like Victory are sure to play on the heritage of the American motorcycle as the foundation upon which they will build.

But what of the bikes themselves? As Excelsior Henderson look to revived fortunes in 2002, what of the bikes that bore those names in the American of the great depression? What of Indian, or Pope, or Crocker? And what of Harley-Davidson – the masters of their own history, and the greatest exponents in the art of recycling it?

Beyond the heritage angle, there's the offbeat stuff, like the transverse V from Indian, or Harley's XA boxer engined bike, or their fore-and-aft Sports twin, or Servicars? There's a wealth of stuff out there from the interesting to the inspirational, and we aim to dig it out.

In this section we will be looking at anything from the dawn of the motorcycle age through to the recently dearly departed FXRs and Evos. Owners reviews are welcome, and anyone who has an interesting machine is encouraged to share the experience of ownership with the rest of us – and if anyone has something they are prepared to entrust to our grubby mitts, you can expect some retrospective roadtests in there too - especially if it's a Crocker ... though that's so unlikely as to be little more than a dream.

The one thing that is for certain is that there are people out there who believe that the 1340 Shovel went too far in the evolution of the species, for who the Evo is nought but a pretender to the throne - or even that overhead valves are the work of the devil himself. Those people have fascinating stories to tell, and a wealth of information to share ... all we've got to do is explain what telephones are to them, how modems link into them and why they might want a computer when pen and paper has served them so well so far.