Page 14 - Oundle Life October 2023

OUNDLE MUSEUM
Local motorworks?
We have a rather intriguing advert in our collection in the Museum, for something called Ner-A-Car! It was sold in Oundle by L. Hodson & Sons – no address just Oundle. Looking at a Census from 1911 there was a Louis Hodson living in Oundle with his wife Elizabeth and one son Harry at the time at ‘Motor works, Oundle’. They had two other children according to this Census who were elsewhere at the time. He was an engineer working on motors.
The Ner-A-Car was a type of motorcycle designed by Carl Neracher in 1918 and had an unusual steel channel chassis like a car, with steering at the front making it nearly a car in design. It was the most successful hub-centre steering motorcycle ever produced with about 10,000 manufactured in the United States and around 6,500 produced in England under licence by the Sheffied-Simplex company, between 1921 and 1926 under the Ner-A-Car name.
It was marketed as a low cost alternative to a motor car and promoted its step through design and protection from road grime and engine fluids, which allowed riders to wear ordinary
clothes, including skirts, cassocks and kilts! Production ended at Sheffield-Simplex in
the Autumn of 1926, but it tickled us to think of people driving around Oundle in one and would be lovely to know if anyone knows of this? Please let us know.
The Museum will be open every weekend 1-4pm until the 29th October. The 28th October will be a special ‘engines’ day so please come along and see all our old engines running. We also hope to have in the Museum by then a
new Bronze Age hoard which we have acquired recently, very exciting.
Photo from the Netherlands of two people in 1923 riding a Ner-A-Car
Carole Bancroft-Turner
Please check our website and facebook page for any further information: www.oundlemuseum.org.uk
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