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All About
STORY AND PHOTOS COMPLIMENTS OF S&S CYCLE
An Introduction to a Name We Know
Who are these S&S guys, anyway
George J. Smith (left) and Stanly Stankos (right) founded S&S Cycle in 1958, in Blue Island, IL. S&S originally
stood for Smith & Stankos.
As the first of a series of articles
from S&S Cycle, it’s a good idea to
start at the beginning then move
forward. That’s because even though S&S
has been in business for over 50 years,
there are still a lot of Harley riders who
don’t know who we are. This is especially
true of folks who are new to motorcycling
or just new to the Harley scene. This is
partly due to the fact that S&S occupies
somewhat of a niche market, and not
everyone is in the market for what we sell.
See, S&S is in the business of making
Harley-Davidson motorcycles go faster,
and let’s face it, not everybody is into that.
First of all you’d have to own a Harley, and
secondly you’d have to like to go fast. Believe
it or not, there are a goodly number
of Harley owners who are satisfied with
their stock machines. The intrinsic coolness
of the brand, its styling, and the
image are enough for them. But there’s
another segment of the population, usually
more experienced riders, who do want to
go fast. Those are S&S customers, or at
least our potential customers.
Sometimes members of the first group
are converted to the second group when,
let’s say, a Geo Metro strolls past their
loaded bagger on the freeway. Wow,
that’ll get their attention!
S&S was founded in Blue Island, Illinois,
a suburb of Chicago, in 1958 by George J.
Smith and his friend and riding buddy Stanly
Stankos. That’s where the S&S originally
came from: Smith and Stankos. Stanly had
another business that he needed to focus
on, so he sold his interest in S&S to
George and his wife Marjorie about a year
later. George and Marge were both riders
so they had a feel for what was needed in
the market—since they were part of that
market themselves. That’s something that
remains true today: most of the people at
S&S who develop and sell the products are,
in fact, riders, and they dig speed.
The question is sometimes asked, “How
does S&S come up with product ideas”
The first product S&S Cycle produced was
In this 1952 photograph George J. Smith points to one of the two carbs on his killer Knuck, Tramp. This
was an early solution to high performance fuel delivery problems.
70 IronWorks January/February 2012

George's wife Marge was also a rider. She not only managed the office,
but worked in the shop too. Mechanically adept, she was able to handle
most technical phone calls as well.
a solid lifter conversion kit that included
lightweight aluminum pushrods. The reason
a pushrod kit was the first S&S product
was that the valve train in the Harley engines
of the day was pretty wimpy. It was
one of the major impediments to going
faster. It doesn’t matter what other performance
enhancements you have going for
you, if your valves float, you’re engine will
flat-line. Solid lifters solved that problem.
How many hot rod Pans or Shovels do you
know of that aren’t running solid lifters
Once that hurdle was cleared, the next
weak link in the chain was carburetion. An
engine needs more air to rev and make
power. George already had a solution for
that. He’d been running dual carbs on his
race bikes for years, so he made dual carb
heads for Pans commercially available on
an exchange basis. Because those heads
were so labor-intensive, only about 50 sets
of them were made. That led to the development
of a much simpler solution in
1966: the now legendary S&S carburetors.
Can you see a pattern developing here
Find the weak link and fix it. S&S still looks
for what’s needed in the market and that’s
where a lot of our product ideas come
from. Back in 1994, S&S offered a complete
engine, which was quickly embraced
This lathe was a sizable investment for the Smiths, but it
was needed to manufacture the long stroke flywheels
which are the heart of an S&S stroker kit.
by the emerging custom OE market. In the
late 1990’s S&S introduced the 4” bore
engines because we knew that the guys
twisting the throttle wanted bigger motors.
In the early part of this century, we
introduced 4 1 ⁄8” bore engines, because
their lust for power had not been satisfied.
The S&S gear drive
cams for Twin Cam 88
engines are another
good example of fixing
a weak link.
In more recent years
the economic climate
dictated a different mix
of products. Far fewer
people could afford to
build bikes from the
frame up, so more and
more riders were hotrodding
stock bikes
they already owned.
That was reflected in
the S&S “Teach an old
hog new tricks” advertising
campaign in
2009. The economic
climate also contributed
to the current
S&S 4-Step Performance
Program, which
allows a rider to get instant
gratification by installing an air cleaner
and slip-on mufflers. He or she can
then make more performance improvements
as the money is available. Make no
mistake, we still sell engines, but we’ve expanded
our line of more affordable products
that allow just about everyone to play.
IronWorks January/February 2012
Reader Service No. 37
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This late 1960’s photo shows company founder
George J. Smith assembling early S&S carburetors,
a much more practical fuel delivery system
than the two-carb heads.
But a more affordable line of products
does not mean lower quality! It’s just that
it’s easier to fit a set of mufflers and an
air cleaner into your budget than it is to
write out the check for a complete engine.
We use American foundries and forging
houses to produce our raw materials, and
employ American vendors for other products
every time we can. Starting with the
best stuff we can get, we do the machining
and assembly in-house. That way we
can keep tabs on quality control. That’s a
pretty good recipe for great products, but
there’s still more to it.
Some people say, “The road to hell is
paved with good intentions,” and so it is
with product development. Even with great
ideas, sophisticated design software, and
skilled engineers, things can go wrong.
Sometimes spectacularly! That’s why we
do extensive testing on even the simplest
of parts. If something is going to fail,
break, or cause trouble, we’d rather find
that out in our testing program than in a
phone call from a customer. The S&S logo
contains the words “Proven Performance”
and that pretty much sums it up.
Next time, more on the testing
program. IW
*RESOURCE
S&S Cycle Inc.
www.sscycle.com
72 IronWorks January/February 2012