Own trying to decide which American owned and operated motorcycles to buy. The % of which bike is made in America I will buy.

All Victory motorcycles are made in the U.S.A. Polaris has no Victory plants in other countries.

I am an American with an international license. I have been riding motorcycles for about 15 yrs, and have driven all over Scotland. I will be in the UK for approximately a year and was wanting to purchase a motorcycle to ride for the duration of my stay. I would hate to have to pay for testing, but I want to have the power to which I am accustomed, a minimum of 750cc’s preferably 1100cc’s+.

You can drive a motorcycle in the uk on your international licence for 12 months from the date of your entry to the uk. Beyond this you will need to take a motorcycle test. This consists of…

CBT – Compulsory Basic Training
Theory Test
Practical test

If you are older than 21 you can take your test on a machine restricted to 46bhp, then you can ride any bike unrestricted.

I have seen this bike and really like the style and size, Is there any American made motorcycles similar to this style?

No. The closest thing (motor-wise) to the IMZ line is BMW’s that have the boxer motors, but the styling on the BMW’s are completely different. The IMZ looks more like a Triumph, or an Indian.

the touch sreen tthey use n the program

I Googled "American Chopper design software" and hit Enter.
“With Adobe Illustrator CS and Photoshop CS software, in addition to the Adobe Video Collection, I can work more efficiently, and I have ultimate creative freedom. It’s awesome, because expressing myself through still artwork and video is what I like to do best.”
Jason Pohl,
graphic artist and designer, Orange County Choppers
AND
CONCORD, Mass., Jan. 31, 2005 — Orange County Choppers, the custom motorcycle shop popularized on the Discovery Channel show “American Chopper,” uses SolidWorks® software to design the sweeping exhaust pipes, daring wheels, and other key features that make its street machines unique. SolidWorks’ ease of use allows Orange County ‘s lead parts designer to convert cool ideas into 3D models without any prior computer-aided design (CAD) software training.

“I’m an artist, not an engineer or a programmer,” said Jason Pohl, designer at Orange County Choppers. “I usually just throw lines on paper to knock out a good concept for the part I am working on. SolidWorks was so easy to learn that in no time, I could put my sketch ideas into 3D models that I can perfect before machining begins. I am now sculpting my ideas rather than just sketching them.”
Easy to find answers to questions using Google.

I Googled "American Chopper design software" and hit Enter.
“With Adobe Illustrator CS and Photoshop CS software, in addition to the Adobe Video Collection, I can work more efficiently, and I have ultimate creative freedom. It’s awesome, because expressing myself through still artwork and video is what I like to do best.”
Jason Pohl,
graphic artist and designer, Orange County Choppers
AND
CONCORD, Mass., Jan. 31, 2005 — Orange County Choppers, the custom motorcycle shop popularized on the Discovery Channel show “American Chopper,” uses SolidWorks® software to design the sweeping exhaust pipes, daring wheels, and other key features that make its street machines unique. SolidWorks’ ease of use allows Orange County ‘s lead parts designer to convert cool ideas into 3D models without any prior computer-aided design (CAD) software training.

“I’m an artist, not an engineer or a programmer,” said Jason Pohl, designer at Orange County Choppers. “I usually just throw lines on paper to knock out a good concept for the part I am working on. SolidWorks was so easy to learn that in no time, I could put my sketch ideas into 3D models that I can perfect before machining begins. I am now sculpting my ideas rather than just sketching them.”
Easy to find answers to questions using Google.

As American made as Harley Davidson.

Harley and Victory are the only two American made bikes I can think of. Are there any others? To tell you the truth I wanted to buy American but when you compare a Harley/Vistory to say a Honda for example…the Honda seems to be more bang for the buck. More features for less money. Hell its 2010 and the Victory cruisers don’t even have a damn gas guage. Thoughts?

Victory has only been producing motorcycles since 1998 and belongs to a company that has produced (in my book) some sub-par pwc’s and so-so atv’s. Harley on the other hand is not just a motorcycle, its a piece of American history, it represents blood, sweat and tears from over 100 years of good old USA pride. At the last Harley rally I went to I heard the President of Harley Davidson say "its not just a motorcycle club, its a family".
Dont get me wrong there are lots a really good motorcycles out there and I have owned many of them, but I didnt understand the difference until I bought my first Harley.

Just because I am standing up for something this country is and should be proud of I’m sure I will get a lot of "thumbs-down" ratings from the people who dont know what it means to be patriotic.

I’m looking for an American motorcycle that’s under $3500 and newer then 2000. Also i need it to get at least 55mpg and seat two people. So far all i see is Buells, is there any other motorcycle to fit this description?
if not in this price range, then as close as possible. lets extend it to, no more then $6000, just keep it American,

I think you are going to have a really hard time filling that bill. A 2000 Sportster is going to be about as close as you can get and it is still going to cost at least $4000, and get nowhere near 55mpg. Niether are the Buells unless maybe you get the single cylinder blast. It’s just a Sportster with one cylinder missing so it is really underpowered.

I’m doing a project for a class and to complete it I need to know more about the differences between American, Japanese, and European motorcycles. Are American motorcycles similar to European motorcycles and Japanese are completely different? I don’t mean just in kph vs mph but info more about how American motorcycles are generally bigger than Japanese and meant for longer rides, etc. Thanks!!!!!

I think you need to compare requirements and roads.

To over-generalise –

US roads are long and straight with few curves.

European and Japanese roads have far more in the way of curves. Relative distances between large cities are much smaller.

Overwhelmingly the dominant force in European motorcycles are the Japanese manufacturers, most European manufacturers are, to some extent or another, led by Japanese trends. There are some that take their own path – KTM in Austria, BMW in Germany for example – however both of these companies have a litre plus bike that is comparable to Japanese manufacturers. Generally US manufacturers have a tiny segment of the market in Europe (Buell, sadly defunct, were making some inroads but only slight, Harley-Davidson’s presence is minute and will be reducing thanks to market forces), this is partly due to the perception that HDs do not corner or brake.

I realise that some of this will be seen as flaming, it is not intentional merely a product of generalisation.

There aren’t that many differences today. Speedos in kph vs mph. And motorcycles sold in the US don’t have headlight switches–the headlight stays on all the time and you can switch from low to high beam, but the European version has a switch to turn the headlight off.

For a while (1980s) the speedometers on US bikes only were allowed to go up to 85 mph., no matter how fast the bike went. But in Europe they had kilometers on them anyway so that wasn’t a problem.

ALL motorcycles have the shift on the left these days. The Brits were the last to change over, I think. (I once had an accident on a bike because I went to brake but downshifted instead. 8^< ).