Rare Racer

This super-rare 1930 DAR Road Racer is much, much more than a restoration …

- David Reidie

By 1929, the Harley-Davidson Competition Department had 15 years experience at building racing motorcycles, many of which went into history books as the most successful competition machines ever built. However, as board track ovals were closed down for that modern cliché, Safety Reasons (in this case the reason did warrant it) Harley were struggling in the battle for supremacy against Excelsior and Indian. By 1926 opposition factories had developed OHV machines for the 750 expert category in American hillclimbing events but Harley did not have a 750cc road model to springboard development, unlike the Excelsior Super X and Indian Scout.

Finally, H-D released their OHV 750cc DAH hill climber which was built in very limited numbers and by 1932 was the dominant machine. The bike you see here is derived from that DAH motor and is described in Harley’s 1930 competition catalogue as the ‘DAR 750cc 3-speed Road Racer for export.’ Until recently, little was known of this model other than archive photographs depicting this motorcycle that we now know is a DAR. The racer shown with the DAR is Paul Weyres, a wealthy German Harley dealer and road racer of some note. The photos were taken outside the Harley Juneau Ave headquarters in June 1929. Weyres took delivery of two of these machines.

Two other DARs were delivered to Scandinavia, another hotbed of motorcycle racing and a market where Harley sold well. That makes four machines that went to Europe but none of these bikes exist today. Two earlier JD frame style bikes powered by DAH engines were built for the Muroc Dry Lake speed trials in California where they achieved speeds up to 124mph.