The twingle has to be one of the strangest configurations ever tried for a motorcycle.  It has two cylinders, one in front of another.  It is like a v twin Harley except the cylinders are parallel.  Like the Harley, the pistons run together on a single crank pin so they go up and down together. At the top of the cylinder they share a common combustion chamber.  Thus the twin cylinders really act a single cylinder hence the name twingle.  The back cylinder does intake duties while the exhaust goes out the front cylinder.  The exhaust pipes come from two ports in the front cylinder. Not one pipe per cylinder as on most twins. The twin spark plugs end up in the same combustion chamber and make for a more efficient burn in the long combustion chamber. It also provides a back up should you foul a plug. Note the sketch of the twingle.

What is the advantage of all of this?  Darned If I know.  Twingles are not at all fast but I think the configuration does give them better gas mileage, a real problem with most two strokes.  The good news is that they are super reliable.  Keep oil in the tank and they will run forever.

The twingle is a two stroke which means that oil is mixed with the gas and after it passes through the crank case and lubricates everything it goes to the combustion chamber where it is burned.  Burned oil makes smoke and that is normal for all two cycles.  The twingle has oil injection so the left tank is for two-cycle oil.  As you drive this will be consumed so you have to check the oil every couple of hundred miles and not let it run dry. The oil injection was rare in the 50's but the twingle had it.  The advantage is that you do not have to mix oil every time you fill the tank and it carefully meters the oil at a leaner rate so there is less smoke and better oil mileage.

The bike was made in Austria by Daimler Puch and is patterned after the German BMW's of the era.  The styling is admirable with a teardrop tank and a good-looking engine. The speedometer in the headlight shell completes the BMW charade. The workmanship is first class and that is the main reason why they are so reliable.  If you do have trouble the parts availability is good (Motor West in Milwaukee).  They do not bring very high prices but that is simply because there are plenty of them still around.  These tough bikes have survived better than almost any other bike of that era. Sears sold tons of them, mostly by mail order, because they had a very competitive price tag and couldbe obtained by mail even if there was no dealer nearby. As they get more and more scarce their value will surely increase. Click here to hear the mighty Puch run.

For those of interested in Puch parts, Motor West in Milwaukee is the only US supplier that I know of. Their number is 414 875 8787 and they do offer mail order service.