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 Tallahassee 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. It won a "Judges' Award" at the show, indicating that all four judges agreed it was worthy of recognition.

Mark told me how he came to own it:

"I got my Cycar back in the mid '90s. I saw an ad in Old Bike Mart and a tiny picture of it. We had no internet so I called the number multiple times over a few days. It turned out the seller was the regalia officer for the Vintage Motorcycle Club and was a chauffeur who worked evenings and nights. This made it hard to contact him given the time difference and his schedule.

"He had to purchase the Cycar as part of a deal on a Model 9 Sunbeam that he wanted. The Cycar had been in a chicken coop since 1959 and the owner wanted to get rid of it, so he made buying it a requirement to purchase the Sunbeam.

"Anyway, I got it and restored it and have been riding and enjoying it ever since. There are not many of them, one is in the Sammy Miller Museum and I used to correspond with a guy in the Netherlands who had one that he would ride around at events dressed as a Vicar.

"Looking at the old logbook, my Cycar has had very few owners and was in pretty complete condition when I got it. The steering head tube portion of the one-piece frame had broken and had a plate welded to strengthen it; maybe a previous owner did some motocross jumps with it!"

Good for 35 miles per hour, a Cycar 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.

They ride where others shiver to go

Sheer guts, without glory.

 The New Yorker magazine, tongue, as usual, firmly in cheek, this week paid tribute to "New York's Toughest" — the city's motor scooter food delivery riders. 

Artist Peter de Seve drew the front-page cartoon for the Feb. 2, 2026 edition, showing delivery riders as the only traffic on a snow choked street. They brave the bitter winter elements, with their big orange food bins on their backs. 

Let's give it up for the dauntless riders of New York City, and virtually every other city. 

Yes, motorcyclists on Royal Enfields have long braved the heights of the Himalayas. Competition riders have achieved higher speeds. Stunt performers have accomplished more outlandish trick riding. 

But for day-in, day-out riding with guts (and without glory), the door dashing riders delivering hot-to-go food to your door (because you don't want to go outside in THAT) deserve the award.

Not that I appreciate them blowing through red lights, cutting paths through traffic no one else can see, or terrifying pedestrians on sidewalks.

Sometimes unlicensed, probably uninsured, they go where they must, if the pizza is to stay hot.

Our natural reaction is to, rightly, curse their recklessness. But we have to admire their skill. Especially when it is a given that their machines generally seem in worse condition than anything else on the road.

Their mufflers, at least, are often missing in action.

We naturally resent the fact that they are obviously free of effective regulation: no police force could catch them.

The rest of us must pay for parking in the city. They fearlessly park anywhere they like, for free.

How can parking police write a ticket for something that has no license plate?

And, besides: the city has to eat. Restaurants have food to sell. Customers like the convenience. The tips are apparently good enough to encourage riders to go for it.

Scooters are cheap. Lives shouldn't be cheap.

Their rider training is Darwinian. Get good at it fast, or face the painful consequences. It isn't anything the Motorcycle Safety Foundation would endorse, but it works.

I can't ride like that, and I don't want to pay the price to learn. Not anymore than I'd care to learn how to ride The Wall of Death.

But I'll give skill a nod when I see it.

Fun stuff from 2026 Dania Beach show

Is it a real Indian motorcycle and sidecar? Nope.

 Motorcycle shows are supposed to be fun, and Saturday's 2026 Dania Beach (Florida) Vintage Motorcycle Show was plenty of fun. 

So, before we get into the priceless restorations and rarely seen historical treasures, let's look at some fun stuff: 

It looks big, but is kiddie size.

Here's what looks in pictures like a big Indian Chief with a sidecar, a little rough, the way you'd like to find it for sale in some barn in Wisconsin.

But in real life you realize that "it's small!" The motor looks real, but it's a unit motor; the fire extinguisher is toy size, and the saddlebag is no bigger than a lady's purse. The sidecar is too small to hold even a dog. 

The giveaway is the side of the motor, marked "Lenaerts, Brussels, Belgium" — a maker of (originally) non-functional carousel rides for children. 

But this one functions, as this video shows:

The noise you hear in the video is the crackling of the wind. The machine moved silently. The rider claimed the internal combustion motor is real, just so finely tuned you can't hear it. But that had to be a lie, onlookers agreed. It's electric.

More fun stuff:

Arthur Kowitz, of Ormond Beach, Fla., and a friend built this monocoque motorcycle for 1973 AMA racing. It carries a 350cc two-stroke Kawasaki motor.

1974 Norton Interstate has a l-o-o-o-ng kickstand.

Vintage parking meter: two hours for only 5 cents!

1974 Dneper 650 shown by Etier Vichot of Miami looks rough, but came in under its own power. It sounded great!

Children's push tricycle made from an actual war surplus 110-pound practice bomb. A rarely seen vintage toy.

Shiny little lever under the seat of 1955 Triumph Thunderbird 6T shown by Nigel Cardwell of Boca Raton, Fla., is the choke lever. Why crowd the handlebars when this is a closer and easily reached placement?

Lots of children enjoyed the vintage motorcycle show. Great to see them being introduced to artworks on wheels; plus there was an ice cream truck.

Already gorgeous motorcycle gets a little more love.

Heavily stickered Vespa has really low mounted mirrors.

"No Step!" warns fender of sidecar on BMW R75/5 shown by Harold Hickey, of Miami.

Why does the 1966 BMW R20/2 shown by Gary Harker of Fort Lauderdale have three rear view mirrors? Because the middle one is actually a handlebar spotlight, as the video below demonstrates.