Some of these bikes had style and flair, while others were awkward and weird looking knock offs of American bikes during the 1980s after Harley Davidson improved their quality and style, which Japanese manufacturers wanted a piece of that market. Japanese manufacturers didn't settle on a series of two engines as Harley Davidson did.

When Japanese manufacturers created the cruiser and touring market versions of their brand, there was no consensus as to how to do it, and they tried many configurations. As time went by, these bikes did develop their own panache', but they did it with 2, 4, and even 6 cylinders in different configurations.

15 Honda Fury

Courtesy Kingsport Cycles

A beautiful bike styled with a raked-out front end with a large, powerful V-twin. Available for over 15 years, this 1300 C.C. torque monster is one of the bikes that took 25 years of trial and error for styling and configuration before Honda had a high-selling model that they could keep largely the same with only incremental changes.

Note, that it has a conventional fork and not one that has the stanchions mounted behind the axis of the wheel. For many years, Japanese manufacturers tried to improve the handling of cruisers by offsetting the axis, but it looked weird.

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14 Suzuki M109R B.O.S.S.

Courtesy Cycle News

Suzuki built a hybrid musclebike in their own image and other than being a cruiser, it's definitely all Suzuki in style. First thing, it has shaft drive and 110 H.P. at a very low R.P.M. just off idle. It also uses a modern inverted fork and high-quality brakes that would be found on sportier models equally as well.

This particular 1800 C.C. bike has a paint option call the "Blacked Out Sport Special." Handling is average with the raked-out front end, but it's designed to be comfortable and beat anything in off-the-line acceleration.

13 Kawasaki Vulcan 2000

Courtesy Motorcycles For Sale.com

This is a powerful, low R.P.M. bike that has 2 liters of displacement and is a crossover between a Harley Softail FSTB and FLH model in terms of style. It's probably the closest to a Harley, but it too was customized with options.

You can see by the early 2000s the Japanese started to understand what people wanted in terms of cruiser style. The bike even has the gas tank-mounted speedometer that is popular on certain Harley models. R.P.M. range is less than a 4500 sweep because this engine is so tall, so shifting is optional!

12 Yamaha Xv1900A Stratoliner VStar

Yamaha XV1900 Streamliner
via Smart Cycle Guide

This bike uses the 83 H.P.and 123Ft.lb torque monster engine and mounts it in a modern chassis reminiscent of a 1950s Hydraglide. The bike is as heavy as it looks at over 750 LB., but the rider of this bike isn't planning to do anything but cruise around, so he doesn't care.

The chrome and paint are very high quality for an imported motorcycle, and this bike is all about being flashy! We like the headlight nacelle, and it highlights the newer styled lighting perfectly. The chrome striping on the tank is attractive post-art-deco styling as well.

11 Suzuki C109R Boulevard

Courtesy Lincoln Motorsports

A homegrown 1800cc shaft drive monster that is a hodge-podge of style not directly taken from any one bike or model. The sissy bar is typical Japanese, the fly screen is typical Harley Fl styling, the exhaust is it's own thing, not tied after another bike style. The manufacturer didn't try to hide the radiator on this one and left it to do what it does best.

It's interesting that the footpegs for the passenger are smaller fold-out floorboards that emulate the foot control area for the operator. Not really a copy, but a collection of various styling cues.

10 Yamaha VMX Vmax 1700

Courtesy Smart Cycle Guide

This is the mark II version of the Vmax, and it ended the dumb subset branding of "Star" which nobody except focus groups thought was a good idea anyway. So Yamaha went back to being Yamaha, and they built this shaft drive monster to make 200 H.P. and run 9s in the quarter-mile.

It's the only high R.P.M. muscle cruiser because the Suzuki M109R makes almost 80 less horsepower but does it at less than half the engine speed. This one is a unique niche' for the guy who wants straight-line speed and comfort. The air scoops are real and do work.

9 Honda Valkyrie Rune

Courtesy B And E Recreation

This is a limited production styling exercise using the carlike 6-cylinder 1800 C.C. Honda touring engine and shaft-drive mounted in a neo-retro meets science fiction chassis. It was expensive and drove well for such a heavy bike, but it didn't sell well and is very collectible.

The hydraulic/girder combination fork is unique and maybe the only model that ever used one. We like this custom attempt at a Japanese bagger without bags (until installed), and the closed rear wheel is a neat styling cue. If you like the feel of a good Porsche engine, you'd like this bike. It is smooth!

8 Honda Magna 750

Courtesy Car View Specs

Developed as a continuation of the Honda V4 cruiser concept, this was a very balanced bike that was mostly styled as a Honda. It used a retuned sportbike engine and sold for almost 10 years in the 90s and 2000s and was part of the evolution Honda took towards what they thought a cruiser is.

The firing order was actually oriented away from smoothness and designed to give it a chugga, chugga sound, and firing order for feeling more like a cruiser. It definitely didn't try to pretend to be a Harley with 4 pipes sticking out the side of the bike.

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7 Suzuki VS1400 Intruder

Courtesy Motorcyclespecs.co.za

This was Suzuki's Chopper Style Cruiser for almost 2 decades. There were smaller versions all the way down to 750cc sold in the USA, all were pretty good bikes. Long before Suzuki tried to brand bikes as "Boulevard" they sold these things in large numbers. In their own style, they were attractive and very cruiser-esque and did their own thing.

If thin, raked-out choppers with a balanced clean look were your thing, this was a bike for you. It never suffered from the awkward looks that some of the other early Japanese cruisers did and people liked the shaft drive for low maintenance.

6 Yamaha Venture Royale Touring

Courtesy Smart Cycle Guide

A popular touring bike for long trips with a muscular engine shared with the popular Mark I-Vmax. This bike worked to be its own brand and didn't try to copy any Harley Touring bike, but instead stated "new and powerful", not "old and antique". Different sides to the same touring coin.

Those who bought this wanted carlike power and smoothness and its closest competitors wee the ever-popular Honda Goldwing and Kawasaki Concours series. There were entire subsets of luxury packages and fitments both Yamaha and aftermarket that were developed for this bike because it was in production so long.

5 Kawasaki Concourse 1000

Courtesy Mainaland Cycle

Why pretend, call this bike what it is: "The Ninja Touring Edition." Everybody else had a touring motorcycle, and Kawasaki was already working on the ZX series race replica tooling in the late 80s, and thought, "what the heck", let's ignore Harley and lean towards the BMW market for our touring cycle. So yesterday's sportbike became tomorrow's touring rig.

It worked well enough and they sold these things for almost 20 years. The bike had bigger wheels for touring and slightly different tune and gearing for the engine. They added baggage and larger farings and thus they had a bike to offer in the touring market. It is rumored this bike was still sold as a ZZ-R in Europe many years after the ZG designation was dropped in North America. Its modern variant sold today is the Concours 1400 which is based on the ZX1400, and it's a beast.

4 Kawasaki Vulcan 900

Courtesy Salinas Motorcyle Center

A pretty authentic looking air-cooled 70 H.P. cruiser cut in the cloth of a custom Harley. Obviously, the exhaust system is typical of Kawasaki, but the rest of the style is a typical Low Rider. The frame is styled after a Softail and has the hidden suspension that hides the components emulating a rigid frame. The wheels are styled after typical aftermarket custom wheels available and popular in the early 2000s.

This bike is for the guy who can't afford to build a $20K custom cruiser but who wants the look of that bike. Definitely a candidate for an aftermarket exhaust system.

3 Kawasaki ZL900 Eliminator

Courtesy Moto-Zombiedrive.com

This was a shaft drive muscle cruiser from the 1980s. Kawasaki just wasn't feeling the V-Twin air-cooled feeling other companies were in the 1980s. Their thoughts were, keep the bikes fast and modern. So they slapped their Concours engine into a cruiser and offered the other Vmax.

It basically looked like an FXR that ran a lot faster. It wasn't until the Vulcan series that Kawasaki gave into the V-twin rage, Kawasaki liked parallel twins, singles, and 4s with an occasional 6 for fun! The bike was cheap and fast and you could get parts for them everywhere.

2 Honda V65 Magna

Courtesy 2040motos

A great engine and awkward styling. A great sportbike engine mounted to an awkward hodge-podge of "Sort-of-Cruiser" styling. This one wasn't well thought out. They did sell a lot of them, but the model died in less than a decade. The issue was Honda really didn't have a feel for what Americans wanted in the cruiser market.

The bike wasn't as clean looking as the Vmax, and it wasn't slim and retro like a chopper. Then there was the ever-trendy rearward axis front forks that made the wheel mounting look awkward on this bike. Nobody misses the looks on those forks despite the stability they gave on a cruiser. It was a good lesson and Honda learned it and moved on to greater things.

1 Yamaha XV Virago 920

Courtesy Rider Magazine

This was the awkward start to Japanese manufacturers making cruiser motorcycles. Depending on which ex-employee at Harley Davidson tells the story, the engine is based loosely on the "Nova Project" at H-D which was canceled a year earlier before this bike was produced. It was the first OHC V-Twin engine sold in an American market bike and they sold it for over a decade.

Interestingly, Yamaha toured the Harley manufacturing plants multiple times from 1978-1981, the same years project Nova was actively in development. Only the cam design was copied, and the liquid cooling of the H-D design never appeared on the Yamaha. The 550cc version of this bike was a little better looking. Styling could be described as "nerdy." Look at that sexy (sic) swingarm!

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