Motorcycles at Auction

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3 Pierce-Arrow motorcycles will be offered as part of Mecum’s E J Cole Collection Motorcycle Auction to be held in Las Vegas March 20-21. 2 single cyl and 1 4-cyl. Here’s a link to the catalog:

https://www.mecum.com/featured-lots.cfm?auctionid=EJ0315&auction_type=motorcycle

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Here’s the 4-cyl

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Here’s one of the 1-cyls..

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And the other 1-cyl

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They look great, but if I were to start playing with motorcycles I think I’d want a “Flying Merkel”” just for the name!”

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I was at a relatively small auction close to Baltimore, was about 20 or so years ago…bicycles, motorcycles, and other memorabilia…and there was a very early, all original, Flying Merkel, that looked very similar to that picture.. and then it sold for over $80,000….I don’t know if it’s the name or the rarity, but big bucks!

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The 4 cylinder Pierce is gorgeous.

I love the clean look of the rear with the shaft drive.

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Looking closely at the pictures from the site, the Pierce 4 sure looks like a shaft drive to me.

It has pedals and a chain like most motorcycle of that era did to help with starting and to get it moving without the motor running on one side and a shaft drive setup on the other.

I could be wrong, but that is what it looks like to me.

If the shaft coming out of the rear of the motor drives the pedals then that is one really lightweight chain to move the bike at speed and that would also mean that the pedals would be moving the entire time the bike was in motion.

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Peter, you are wrong on all counts. Pierce 4 cylinder motorcycles are shaft drive, and Pierce single cylinder motorcycles are belt driven.

Ernie’s two singles are definitely belt driven,

and the 4 cylinder that we saw being driven at the Asheville meet was definitely shaft driven.

Greg Long

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Wasn’t the 4 cyl. At Warwick shaft driven as well?

James

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Yes it was. Here’s one of the two four cylinder models that I saw there.

Bill

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The Four-cylinder in the Pierce-Arrow Museum is shaft Drive and Eby’s restored one seen at the Garage Hop in Kalamazoo at the 2012 Meet is as well. From everything I have read, all of the Fours are shaft drive.

Dave

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From now on, I’m sticking to comments about Series 80 cars, and FYI, I was wrong on both counts.

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