I understand that CC’s = mL’s, but CC’s is something that I have always associated with the medical field.. so how did motorcycles get roped into that? Is it just easier to say “I have a 250cc dirt bike” rather than saying “250mL?”
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Back when America was the leading automobile manufacturer they used cubic inches for all their engines. When Japan entered the market they used cc because of the metric system. The two systems slowly combined and one of the most popular uses of liters was Mustang 5.0.
Motorcycles on the other hand kept with the CC because it was what people were used to in motorcycles and quite frankly a .5 liter engine does not sound very impressive and can be confusing when someone has to buy a motorcycle and is trying to compare the familiar CC with liters, especially when CI was still in use by Harley. This was before the internet and ease of research.
The convention is still around, but slowly changing. Harley is still defining 114 ci engines, but their Sportster 1200 is defined in cc. Harley needed to put out the 114 engine in cubic inches just so people can immediately see that it is bigger than their 103 and 88 cubic inch engines. Same with metric motorcycles, if one is not familiar with metric, they can immediately see that a 1200cc engine is bigger than the 1200cc engine and might not grasp the 1.2 liter or 1200ml is the same thing.
So the answer is a bit of familiarity by buyers and marketing by companies.
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