Positively luxurious, the 1909 Pierce was the first four-cylinder motorcycle manufactured in the USA for customer sale. With its massive tubular steel frame, it also stood out for the smoothness of its four-cylinder engine, leading to it being dubbed the ‘Vibrationless Motorcycle’. As a Pierce advert declared: “Pierce motorcycles are not made to compete in price, but to surpass in quality. It is a deluxe motorcycle for discriminating riders.”
The fact that it traced its roots to the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co, maker of the most prestigious American cars then available, added further lustre to its appeal.
The son of English migrants to the USA, George Norman Pierce was born in 1846 in Friendsville, Philadelphia, but had moved to Buffalo, NY by the time he started a business in 1865, known as Heinz, Pierce and Munschauer.
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