1922 Neracar Model A

A few Neracars have survived the Depression and the scrap drives of World War II. “My interest in Neracars goes back 40 years,” explains Dave Kafton. Dave, an Antique Motorcycle Club of America stalwart, has been a motorcycle mechanic, a Cannonball racer, a restorer of vintage engines, and (in his youth) one of those people your parents warned you against. Forty years ago, Dave was just starting to get interested in vintage bikes. He was at a gathering of old bike enthusiasts with his wife, Debbie, when Deb spotted something in a barn — a Neracar — for sale. “Deb thought it was cool, but it seemed like a lot of money for something that slow. So I passed on it.” Later, Dave realized he had made a mistake.

Years later, Dave was at the AMCA National event in Dixon, California, where there was another Neracar. “It was original paint but had only part of the engine,” he remembers. He passed on that as well.

Three years ago, a friend attending a swap meet sent Dave a photo. “Have you ever seen one of these? This one’s for sale.”

Looking back at the design

In the early 1900s, there was no real fixed idea of what a motorcycle was supposed to look like, and inventors came up with all sorts of configurations. Some of them look pretty strange to us today, looking back at old motorcycles a hundred years later. There was the Megola, with a rotary engine attached to the front wheel, and the original Indian, with a crescent-shaped gas tank over the rear wheel. The European Seal motorcycle used a steering wheel instead of handlebars, and the Magnet was a German motorcycle that you could steer from the wicker sidecar. Then there was the Neracar, which looks like a caricature of Groucho Marx.

Carl Neracher, a key player in the early United States motorcycle industry, decided that what the American public needed was a stable, easy-to-ride two-wheeler that protected the rider from the dust and mud of the typical World-War-I-era road, a passageway that sometimes resembled a modern motocross track. Neracher had learned of the possibilities of center hub steering, and thought it made great sense for a two-wheeled vehicle. Center hub steering has the steering pivot points inside the hub of the wheel, rather than above the wheel in the triple tree. The advantage to this setup is increased stability. Neracar dealers demonstrated their wares by riding around with their hands off the bars. Recently, a well-known writer was given a Neracar to ride at an event taking place at a racetrack. The bike was much slower than the other vintage machines at the event, so he rode around the inside of the track, while taking photos with a hand held camera.

Neracher licensed some of the design elements of the Detroit Bi-Car, a somewhat similar machine that had been announced in 1911, but never got off the ground. He also filed his own patent application in 1921. He named his invention Neracar, a synthesis of his name and “nearly a car.” The Neracar featured a low center of gravity and a sheet metal body that protected the rider from road dirt and grime.

The idea seemed logical, practical and attractive to a group of industry movers and shakers who invested in the concept. J. Allan Smith, the company president, had connections in England, and Sheffield Simplex Motors, Ltd. was licensed to build Neracars in England. Production in England started in September 1921. The English version of the Neracar had straight springs between the hub and the steering, while American-made Neracars have canted springs, as on this bike. All American-made Neracars were made at the Ner-A-Car factory (the name of the corporation was Ner-A-Car, while the name on the tank was Neracar) in Syracuse, New York, with motorcycles leaving the factory beginning in 1922.

The Neracar consisted of a low slung pressed steel frame powered by a single-cylinder 2-stroke engine. Power was sent to the engine by a unique transmission. It consisted of a friction wheel to the right of the crankshaft that could be moved via lever to any of five different spots, producing what was in effect a 5-speed transmission. Since top speed was no more than 35mph, the need for so many gears is unknown. Carburation was provided by an English Brown and Barlow carburetor, which apparently caused erratic low speed running. Some Neracars may have had a Binks carburetor.

On the road

The Neracar management immediately set out to gain good publicity. Cannonball Baker was hired to ride one coast to coast. A road test in a period magazine, Motorcycling and Bicycling, praised the cleanliness of the Neracar on muddy roads and the ease of handling. It was also reliable: The Neracar won several medals for reliability in long-distance road trials, including the team prize in the 1925 ACU 1000-mile Stock Machine Trial in England.

The company advertised in general interest magazines, including Popular Mechanics. Selling points included the step-in design, enabling women to ride in skirts and clergy to ride in cassocks. One ad proclaimed, “A bear cat on any hill.” Other ads pointed to the very low running cost and high miles per gallon.

There were several U.S. models made. The Type A had a 211cc single-cylinder 2-stroke engine and cost $207.50 in 1922 dollars. In 1924, a new version was announced, with an optional dual rear brake, more cooling fins on the engine and a relocation of the carburetor. Other improvements included larger springs for the front wheel and a new magneto. The Type B had a larger, 255cc engine. The English version, called “Ner-a-car,” eventually went to an even larger engine.

Unfortunately, the Model T Ford was then on the market, offering weather protection and the ability to haul a medium sized family, a weeks’ worth of groceries and a reasonable amount of bathtub gin for $319 in 1922 dollars. Americans bought motorcycles in the 1920s because they wanted to go fast, get down narrow city streets that were problematic for cars, or needed transportation that was even cheaper than the Model T. For just a few dollars more than a Neracar, the prospective owner could buy an Indian, Excelsior or Harley-Davidson that was faster and much better looking than a Neracar. Next to one of the handsome Indian Scouts of the period (good for 55mph) the Neracar looked weird and seemed slow.

Neracars were popular with the few women riders of the 1920s, and were often bought by visiting nurses in the U.S. and England. The bikes were exported to France and Japan. The English factory experimented with more powerful engines. A second brake was added to the rear hub. The factory cut prices. None of these efforts were sufficient to make the venture profitable, and the Syracuse factory closed on Leap Year Day, February 29, 1928. The English factory probably shut down in 1926 or 1927. About 10,000 are estimated to have been manufactured in the U.S., and about 6,500 were made in England.

Neracars (and Ner-a-cars) today

Dave Kafton estimates that there are about 100 of the bikes left and only a couple dozen running. Owning something this old and unusual has its drawbacks. Almost no one knows how to work on one, and there are no parts available. Dave was warned not to buy a Neracar that didn’t have compression since it would be almost impossible to find the parts to get it running. Still, he was bit by the Neracar bug, and when his friend sent him photos of this bike, he contacted the owner.

The owner turned out to be a Pierce-Arrow enthusiast. A Pierce-Arrow is an antique luxury car that was made in Buffalo, New York, about 150 miles from Syracuse. He had taken the Neracar as collateral for a loan. The borrower skipped on the loan, and the Pierce-Arrow collector was looking to get his money back. Kafton understood that the paint was original. The two agreed on a handshake deal. Kafton was now in for more money than the two Neracars he had passed up combined.

Three days later, the Neracar arrived on a flatbed truck. “I walked out to meet the guy — I could tell it was not original paint, just looking at the bike on the truck.” Dave got on the horn with the owner. The owner refused to budge on the price. His point was that he had loaned the deadbeat X amount of dollars, and therefore, he wanted X dollars for the bike, whether it had original paint, not-original paint or no paint at all.

Dave tested the engine for compression and spark. Even through the bike had been sitting for a while, it had good compression, and the magneto put out a hot spark. Aside from the non-original paint, the bike seemed to be all there, with very little missing. Dave took a deep breath and paid the seller.

Despite the fact he is supposed to be retired, Dave has an extensive garage area with several working lifts. The Neracar went up on a lift, and all the sheet metal came off, the engine came out, and the wheels came off. Kafton cleaned dirt, grease and extra paint from the repainting job off all parts of the bike. The worst was the front center hub. “I got all the gunk and crap out. I filled a bucket eight inches high with crud.”

All parts pristine and the wheel bearings cleaned and re-packed, Dave tried to figure out how his 100-year-old acquisition worked. “It has two coils on the flywheel magneto. One is for the lights, the other for the ignition. There is no battery. The kickstarter return spring needed replacing, but I couldn’t find a left-hand spring with the right diameter. I was stumped, but then something about that coil looked familiar.” Kafton has a cabinet of spares left over from the bike repair business. Modern Harley-Davidson oil filters have a spring to keep them in place. “I got an oil filter out of my cabinet, and there it was.” The easily available oil filter spring was the same size and shape as the defective spring on the Neracar.

Aside from the bad spring, there were four parts missing on the bike: a handlebar grip, a headlight bracket (only part of the original was there), an oil sling guard and a footboard. The footboards are mirror images, so Kafton would have to find a footboard from the same side. After calling around (Kafton knows a lot of people from his Cannonball adventures), Dave lucked into a fellow Neracar enthusiast — a man on the Eastern seaboard who had collected a few parts as a stash for his own Neracar. This person had the right footboard and a headlight bracket and sold them to Dave for a very reasonable price. Dave remanufactured the oil sling guard from an oversized tuna can. He found the handlebar grip at a swap meet.

All missing pieces located, and the bike back together, Kafton turned his attention back to figuring out how to operate his Neracar. “There were two levers on the bars, but I didn’t have a clue what either did. Eventually, I figured it out. The transmission is a constant velocity transmission. It’s a unique thing — there are nine major moving parts in the whole drivetrain. It’s the simplest design I have ever seen.” Also unique for an early-Twenties machine is the drum brake, which works really well. The bike starts easily, and the little 2-stroke engine runs strongly — for a hundred-year-old 221cc 2-stroke engine. Dave even found a 1922 motorcycle license plate. He learned that his machine is one of the earliest in existence.

However, Kafton’s Neracar is not stable at all. It wobbles when running. Kafton has gone through the steering head and made sure the steering gear is assembled accurately. He thinks the problem may be the tires — but since he mostly runs it around swap meets and such, springing for expensive tires for the little antique isn’t in the budget.

It doesn’t matter. Deb and Dave Kafton enjoy taking their Neracar to shows, where it draws more attention than many more valuable machines of its era. “We love it.” MC