Berliner Motor Corporation was the US distributor from the 1950s through the 1980s for several European motorcycle marques, including Ducati, J-Be, Matchless, Moto Guzzi, Norton, Sachs and Zündapp, as well as selling Metzeler tires. Berliner Motor was highly influential as the voice of the huge American market to the motorcycle companies they bought bikes from, and their suggestions, and sometimes forceful demands, guided many decisions in Europe as to which bikes to develop, produce, or discontinue.
Founding
Joseph Berliner founded his motorcycle business in New York City distributing and repairing Zündapp motorcycles east of the Mississippi in 1951, using contacts with that German manufacturer he had developed before World War II. He was a Hungarian Jewish refugee from the Holocaust who had spent time in Hungarian slave labor camps, and had lost 16 close family members on arrival at Auschwitz. Michael Berliner, the youngest of 5 brothers, was saved only because Joseph, and another Berliner brother, both of whom the SS intended to exploit for their skill as mechanics, convinced them that young Michael, too, was a mechanic. The Berliner brothers survived by maintaining a fleet of German army trucks. One brother would die of hunger and typhus, leaving only Joseph, Michael, and two other siblings alive after the war.
Prior to the Holocaust, Joseph Berliner worked in his father's radio-bicycle-motorcycle shop, and had received schooling in mechanics and business. After the war he assisted in Jewish relief in Frankfurt, Germany, and was able to find his wife who had been liberated by the Swedish Red Cross. As the sons of a Hungarian anti-Communist World War I war hero, the brothers feared returning to their Soviet-controlled homeland, and so emigrated to the US.
Motorcycles inspired
Ducati Apollo. Berliner Motor Corporation provided Ducati with both the "almost freakish for the time" specification and part of the financing to develop the failed, yet visionary, Ducati Apollo. The detailed specification Joseph Berliner created came about because he wanted to take advantage of anti-trust rules that required police departments to consider vendors other than Harley-Davidson. To win any of this lucrative business he needed to meet all of the minimum specifications the departments had, such as a 1200 cc engine, and wanted to outperform Harley-Davidson in such areas as top speed and horsepower. Ducati 450 R/T. Ducati Bronco. Ducati Scrambler. Norton Atlas. Norton Scrambler. Norton P11. Moto Guzzi V7/Ambassador/Eldorado Moto Guzzi, like Ducati, was under pressure from the Berliner brothers to produce a Harley-Davidson-style big-bore V-engined bike. It was reported that Moto Guzzi sold 5,000 Eldorados per year from 1972–1974, making it a fierce competitor to the Harley FLH. Moto Guzzi Le Mans