Vintage Postbag - Any Xtracars?, March 1964
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Sir,
I wonder if any devourer of “Fragments of Forgotten Makes” can remember anything about a single-seater 3-wheeler called the “Xtracar ” ?
All I know of it is culled from an article and a couple of pictures in an old Light Car and Cyclecar, dated November 10th, 1922, which describes a trip to Geneva by road, to deliver the car to a customer !
It seemed to be the lightest and simplest little car ever, with a body like a large sidecar, a single rear wheel, cycle-type mudguards wheel steering (probably direct), and a two-stroke engine of unknown power, which apparently ran quite happily on paraffin in an emergency, even through the mountains!
Even now, I still think it attractive, and it would be just the drill as a shopping runabout. I couldn’t buy one, so I have just built one!
A. W. WARD.
Spondon.
(Curiously, another correspondent asked this question last month. Mr. Ward’s last sentence is intriguing; does he mean he has built a replica of a 1922 Xtracar or made a modern equivalent of one ? – ED.)