Rare Royal Enfield at Dania Beach show

Here's a motorcycle I never expected to see.

 I never thought I'd see one in person, but there was a Royal Enfield "Cycar" motorcycle on display at the 2026 Dania Beach (Florida) Vintage Motorcycle Show Jan. 31. 

Royal Enfield made only about 1,500 of Cycars between 1931 and 1936. That's rare! 

And this one is a beauty, immaculately restored to (I assume) better than new condition. In person, the Cycar looks tidy in size and well made. 

The Royal Enfield Cycar looks the business.

I feel badly that I recently wrote that the pressed steel enclosed body is "ugly."

I was comparing the Royal Enfield Cycar of 1931 to the postwar Velocette LE, which sold in thousands.

Compared to the genuinely boxy LE, the Cycar looks purposeful and utilitarian, yes, but certainly not ugly.

Mark Sawicki of Boca Raton wheeled his 1936 Cycar into the display area at Dania Beach as I watched. He told me that, by one count, only 14 Cycars still exist. His must be either the nicest, or at least the closest to it.

His Cycar (also called the Model Z) was displayed with full specifications and history.

Good for 35 miles per hour, it had a 148cc two-stroke motor, three-speed transmission with hand shift, and weighed only 168 pounds. It featured full lighting equipment, front-and-rear brakes, leg shields to keep the rider clean, and a step-through design to suit the ladies.

Its own mostly enclosed body was easy to clean.

Big motorcycle features on a little motorcycle.

The front suspension featured a real spring; not the silly rubber bands that would appear later, on the Royal Enfield Flying Flea.

It "was one of the many simple 'mounts for the millions' built during the 1930s,' the placard noted, adding that "this machine runs well and is ridden regularly."

Blogger Jorge Pullin has compiled period press reports from when the Cycar was new. They refer to the then new class of motorcycles as "Snowdens" and relate them to "the Snowden 15s tax" (half the existing yearly tax).

The explanation for this is found in the Budget Speech delivered by Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden on April 27, 1931: 

"In order to encourage the manufacture in this country of a new type of light motor bicycle which is now being rapidly developed on the Continent, I propose to introduce a special rate of duty for motor bicycles, the engines of which have a cylinder capacity not exceeding 150 cubic centimeters."

Pressed steel full enclosure was all-new... in 1935.

At 148cc, the Model Z Cycar was Royal Enfield's attempt to meet resulting demand that didn't develop at the time. It was, after all, the Depression. The people who would buy a cheap and cheerful motorcycle if they could have didn't have any money at all to spare.

Post-war, Velocette (and, ultimately, Honda) would reap the rewards of real demand for motorcycles that weren't fundamentally dissimilar.