1951 Vincent

[vstevens]

GP Motorcycles has a gorgeous 1951 Vincent Black Shadow... for only 100,000. US dollars




 
 

[oldbike54]

 Probably will bring it . At least with twin cylinder Vinnies , one is buying two of most everything 

  Dusty

[ray bear]

Yes I have a 47 Rapide and often wonder when all the old codgers die off and there is no young ones coming along with that sort of cash or interest in that type of bike  to buy one, maybe one day they will only be worth half that, gulp  hope not

[leafman60]

The values of these icons will only keep going up.

I've never ridden one but I can only wonder at how that experience would square with the renown for these bikes. Ditto for the Brough Superior.

Please give us a ride report, raybear.

[ken farr]

I love old iron.
I would murder look really harshly at someone for a Rapide or Shadow....

My father had quite a collection of mostly Ariel, with a couple of Rudges, a military Matchless, a Sunbeam and my favorite a Simson Sport.
My brother has most of them and takes very good care of them.  They are works of industrial art and I truly appreciate them for that.
Now, they don't want to start very easy-even in proper tune, they vibrate, ( except for the Square Four and the Sunbeam), they handle so-so ( heresy you say!!!), don't stop at all well, leak and need constant attention, but other than that are really fun.
Big brother is the keeper of the flame, and I get to bask in the limelight.....

I do like going to the vintage meets and seeing everything out there, again....industrial art.

kjf

[radguzzi]

I find that odd that GP would just roll the Vincent out front and stick a sign on it.  Wagering that they are advertising it in the collector circles also.

Pretty rig.

[jackson]

I lived in San Diego for many years and had a riding buddy who had an older friend who had a large collection of bikes; one of which, was a Vincent Black Shadow.  He took me to his friend's home one time (in the late 80's) and it was the first and only time that I've ever seen a Vincent Black Shadow, up close.  All the others that I've seen have been in magazines and via the internet.  Since this bike is in San Diego, I just sent an email to my friend with a link to this thread to see if this is the bike that I saw all those years ago.

[mwrenn]

I don't know what the cost would be for importing one of these.  I have wanted to buy one for quite a while.  The market for them is down a bit now in England and Germany.  Right around $70,000 for a nice matching numbers Shadow.  There are a couple of Egli Vincent's available right now too, they are pretty close to $70k as well.
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/list/647/
Anyway, fun to look!  Cool bikes!

[H-E-ROSS]

Fear and Loathing in California?

[LowRyter]

Fear and Loathing in California?

And in 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72' (Random House, 1973):


After Miami the calendar shows a bit of rest on the political front -- but not for me: I have to come back out to California and ride that goddamn fiendish Vincent Black Shadow again, for the road tests. The original plan was to deal with the beast in my off-hours during the California primary coverage, but serious problems developed.
Ten days before the election -- with McGovern apparently so far ahead that most of the press people were looking for ways to avoid covering the final week -- I drove out to Ventura, a satellite town just north of L.A. in the San Fernando Valley, to pick up the bugger and use it to cover the rest of the primary. Greg Jackson, an ABC correspondent who used to race motorcycles, went along with me. We were both curious about this machine. Chris Bunche, editor of Choppers magazine, said it was so fast and terrible that it made the extremely fast Honda 750 seem like a harmless toy.
This proved to be absolutely true. I rode a factory-demo Honda for a while, just to get the feel of being back on a serious road-runner again . . . and it seemed just fine: very quick, very powerful, very easy in the hands, one-touch electric starter. A very civilized machine, in all, and I might even be tempted to buy one if I didn't have the same gut distaste for Hondas that the American Honda management has for Rolling Stone. They don't like the image. "You meet the nicest people on a Honda," they say -- but according to a letter from American Honda to the Rolling Stone ad manager, none of these nicest people have much stomach for a magazine like the Stone.
Which is probably just as well; because if you're a safe, happy, nice, young Republican you probably don't want to read about things like dope, rock music and politics anyway. You want to stick with Time, and for weekend recreation do a bit of the laid-back street-cruising on your big fast Honda 750. . . maybe burn a Sportster or a Triumph here or there, just for the fun of it: But nothing serious, because when you start that kind of thing you don't meet many nice people.
Jesus! Another tangent, and right up front, this time -- the whole lead, in fact, completely fucked.

But first things first. We were talking about motorcycles. Jackson and I were out there in Ventura f***ing around with a 750 Honda and an experimental prototype of the new Vincent -- a 1000-cc brute that proved to be so awesomely fast that I didn't even have time to get scared of it before I found myself coming up on a highway stoplight at ninety miles an hour and then skidding halfway through the intersection with both wheel-brakes locked.

A genuinely hellish bike. Second gear peaks around 65 -- cruising speed on the freeways -- and third winds out somewhere between 95 and 100. I never got to fourth, which takes you up to 120 or so -- and after that you shift into fifth.

Top speed is 140, more or less, depending on how the thing is tuned -- but there is nowhere in Los Angeles County to run a bike like that. I managed to get it back from Ventura to McGovern's downtown headquarters hotel, staying mainly in second gear, but the vibration almost fused my wrist bones and boiling oil from the breather pipes turned my right foot completely black. Later, when I tried to start it up for another test-run, the backlash from the kick-starter almost broke my leg. For two days afterward I limped around with a golfball-sized blood-bruise in my right arch.
Later in the week I tried the bastard again, but it stalled on a ramp leading up to the Hollywood Freeway and I almost broke my hand when I exploded in a stupid, screaming rage and punched the gas tank. After that I locked it up and left it in the hotel parking lot -- where it sat for many days with a MCGOVERN FOR PRESIDENT tag on the handlebars.

George never mentioned it, and when I suggested to Gary Hart that the Senator might like to take the machine out for a quick test-ride and some photos for the national press, I got almost exactly the same reaction that Mankiewicz laid on me in Florida when I suggested that McGovern could pick up a million or so votes by inviting the wire-service photographers to come out and snap him lounging around on the beach with a can of beer in his hand and wearing my Grateful Dead T-shirt.

(added from the Sausage Creature:)

................... .. On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME

[mjptexas]

I had the pleasure of seeing this at the 2011 Harvest Classic in Luckenback Texas:



Riders geared up and ready to leave:


A club ride brought SEVEN Vncents to the the show.  I was lucky enough to be there and see them, and, watched them leave.  Quite a sight.

[johnr]

The Vincent is an icon. I really like the Vincent engine. In truth though there is not a huge amount else I like about them.

It's an unfortunate thing but manufacturers back in 'the day' never deemed it needful to dynamically balance their engines. A pity. It can work wonders. I've ridden a BSA A65 that had be treated to a dynamic balancing and could detect nary a vibe from the thing. Instantly reved it's nuts off too being a single carb model.  I'm sure, being a 90 degree V twin that the Vincent would have benefited greatly from a similar treatment.

I knew an old fella, in his 80s I think,  in Invercargill that had one. He used to lug a huge fully roofed in side car about with his. He used to sleep in the side car at rallies and things.  The time came when he reckoned it was time to give the Vincent a once over. Trouble was after he got all his compression back he couldn't kick it over any more. Wonder what happened to the bike.....

[LowRyter]

I know a fellow who is 75 years old and has a Norvin.  He says it has Rolle Free cams in it.  Anyway, he can't kick it any more.  It's pretty brutal.

[oldbike54]

I know a fellow who is 75 years old and has a Norvin.  He says it has Rolle Free cams in it.  Anyway, he can't kick it any more.  It's pretty brutal.

 He probably means "Black Lighteningeem " cams . The Lightening was developed from the Picador engine with caged main and rod bearings . Technically the famous Rollie Free was not a Black Shadow but a Black Lightening . 

 OK , years ago I did get the pleasure of riding a Vinnie . Picture an amplified looper , the firing pulses seem very far apart , and the bike gathers speed rather than accelerates , although a Vinnie does move out swiftly . The handling was alright given that this one was in the mid 1970's and the tires , while fairly new , were skinny Dunlops built with 1950's tech . The 47.5 degree twin made wonderful noises , but the Brampton forks were antiques when new . The Stevenage twin was like a period Harley that had gone to college and spent time in the gym 

 Dusty

[Kiwi_Roy]

In my childhood days, my Brother had a Rapide, he wouldn't sell it to me because he thought I would kill myself but I did end up with an old Comet which I rode for about 6 years.
As for kick starting these old beasts, that's what the de-compressor lever is for although I never used mine, a short kick to make it bounce off compression then a long kick to accelerate it so the momentum caries it over compression.
Back off on the manual advance lever if it tends to kick back.
I think most old Vincents are plagued by weak magnetos, I saw recently one with a set of points made to look like a magneto firing coils out of sight.

[johnr]

  I'm sure, being a 90 degree V twin that the Vincent would have benefited greatly from a similar treatment.

Oops! It wasn't 90 degrees at all was it.   
(It was the wee hours and I was tired.)