Vincent in profile March 2008

A couple of New Zealanders thought they had a chance of taking the World Land Speed Record for motorcycles with one of these bikes & duly did the job on a public road outside Christchurch. They captured the Solo & Sidecar records with the same bike, attaining over 187 mph. Remember this was a production motorcycle that was merely tuned & geared, not an exotic supercharged purpose-built machine.

In 1955 came another model change, the Series D. There were fully enclosed & "naked" models but it was too little too late. The cheap small car had spelt doom to the family sidecar, a Vincent was now twice the price of a Triumph 650, the writing was on the wall. In December 1955 all motorcycle production was finished although The Vincent Engineering Company survived until the end of '50s.

It should be noted there was never a model called the Black Widow. They were never banned from certain countries because of their speed & they did continue to win, both on the speedway and on bitumen, well into the 1970s. Today there are modified Vincents, Vincent replicas & standard Vincents racing around the world. It is possible to get 100 bhp out of a standard bike with modern technology & fuels. This is not entirely difficult as the standard Black Shadow had a compression ratio of 7.3:1, breathed through a 1 1/8" carb & used 80 octane petrol. A company in Melbourne now make a variety of replicas they call "Irving Vincents" and they are cleaning up on the racetrack in both solo & sidecar classes of classic racing.

Although 50 years have passed since the last bike left the factory, Vincents still have the ability to draw a crowd on the road & the track. The Vincent Owners Club has just built a complete Black Shadow from new parts available from the club spares company. It is possible that spare parts for a 1951 Vincent are easier to come by than a 1972 Suzuki!

Our thanks to Alyn Vincent for providing the material used throughout this feature.