Excelsior

British Excelsior Info
Starting out as a bicycle company making penny-farthings in 1874 under their original name: Bayliss, Thomas and Co, they changed the company name to Excelsior Motor Co. in 1910. Excelsior, based in Coventry, was Britain’s first motorcycle manufacturer, starting production of their own ‘motor-bicycle’ in 1896. Reginald Walker and his son Eric took over after WWI and made a range of motorcycles from 98 to 1,000 cc, mostly powered by JAP, Blackburne and Villiers engines, plus an 850 cc Condor engine. The new company put more effort in competition and racing. To avoid confusion with the American maker of the same name, they called themselves the "British Excelsior". Excelsior last manufactured a motorcycle in 1964 and folded in 1965. Britax, a car accessory company bought the name and produced limited numbers of Britax-Excelsior machines in the late 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excelsior_(Coventry)
 

Excelsior, USA
Excelsior Supply Co. started making V-twin motorcycles (up to 1000cc) in Chicago in 1907 and was purchased by the Schwinn bicycle company in 1912 and it was known as Excelsior Motor Mfg. and Supply Co. until Ignaz Schwinn bought Henderson in 1917 and it became Excelsior-Henderson. The Henderson inline fours were the finest motorcycles in the world, without rival. Hendersons were marketed extensively overseas as well as in the United States during the Schwinn years. Today, there are almost as many extant Hendersons in Europe and Australia/New Zealand as in the U.S. The Excelsior name had already been used in Germany and Britain, so export models were marketed as the "American-X". In 1913, a 1912 model Henderson had just completed circumnavigating the globe, a journey of over 18,000 miles, in ten months. It was the first motorcycle ever to do so. Over a period of almost two decades the Henderson continued to break both endurance and speed records. In 1931 Schwinn called his department heads together for a meeting at Excelsior. He bluntly told them, "Gentlemen, today we stop". Schwinn felt that the Depression could easily continue and worsen for eight years. Despite a full order book, he had chosen to return to his core business, bicycle manufacture. By September 1931 it was all over. In 1994, founded by Dan and Dave Hanlon secured the rights to the defunct Excelsior-Henderson trademark and founded the Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle Company in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. The company declared bankruptcy in 1999 and folded soon after.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excelsior_(Chicago)