Buell RW750

I have to admit that I’m indifferent to most of Erik Buell’s creations. Like some, I’m not really in Buell’s target market. His greatest achievements—aside from cultivating a distinctive brand within the moribund Harley-Davidson group—have always come from his engineering prowess. So it seems fitting to pay tribute to the guy by taking a look at where it all started. The Buell RW750 was a two-stroke, ‘square-four’ racer that ran in the 1983 AMA Formula One series. It was originally the flawed creation of an obscure Welsh engine maker called Barton, but Buell ingeniously re-engineered it, building a competitive bike...