July 18, 2005 The concept of a diesel motorcycle is not one that has occurred to a lot of people – at least not many have thought about it for long because despite a rich century of innovation in motorcycling, only a handful of diesel motorcycles have existed and until very recently, they have all been utility vehicles – bikes designed to get great economy on fuel of questionable quality in rugged and remote regions and said diesel two-wheelers had no performance pretensions. As we all know, diesel technology has come a long way in recent times and now the sans-sparkplug engine promises a renaissance thanks to its low emissions, good power output and low consumption … and like so many aspects of technology, it was the muscle of the military dollar that brought the world’s first modern production diesel motorcycle into being.