Wow, two gorgeous Vincents up for sale at the same time! Although I’d imagine at this point, given their value, many of them are in this kind of condition. Yesterday’s Rapide had been cosmetically modified to look more like the blacked-out and sinister Black Shadow. This one is a few years older and stays a little closer to its roots but is no less desirable for that.

Based on Vincent’s own Meteor/Comet 500cc single, the 50° twin was powerful, a worthy motivator for a true “superbike.”  It is also one of the best-looking engines of all time: elegant, brutal, and purposeful, but this beating heart is, in some ways, the most conventional part of the bike.

Introduced at a time when three-speed, tank-shift gearboxes and rigid frames were the norm, the Vincent must have seemed shockingly exotic. In addition to the swingarm rear suspension, four-speed foot shift, and unit construction for the engine and gearbox, the Vincent skipped right past the next sixty years or so and basically eliminated the frame entirely with their Series B bikes, with various sub-assemblies bolted directly to the engine and gearbox.

The bike also featured Vincent’s own “Girdraulic” alternative front end. Although girder front suspensions weren’t all that uncommon at the time, Vincent’s resistance to the new wave of telescopic forks was based on the inherent limitations of that design, namely stiction and flex. This is something that modern designers still struggle with and the ubiquity of telescopic forks on modern bikes speaks to the difficulty in designing a simple and effective solution. Bikes like the Britten V1000, Bimota Tesi, and Yamaha GTS1000 have all used effective alternatives, but those designs never took off or became mainstream. Only BMW’s “Telelever” suspension has had any significant success.

Vincent’s v-twin was offered in two flavors: Rapide and Black Shadow. The bike being offered is a Rapide, not the higher-performance Black Shadow, although significant internal upgrades have likely erased any performance deficit.

From the original eBay listing: 1947 Vincent Rapide for Sale

A ‘regardless of cost’ restoration was carried out with Brampton forks rebuilt by Ray Daniels, the correct Miller headlight and Alton alternator. Central Wheel Components built the English chrome wheels with the correct 20″ front and 19″ rear rims linked by stainless spokes and ribbed brake drums, with period brake plates with no water excluders. Alloy ‘guards were specified with a Koni rear damper. The ignition is by Lucas KVF magneto with a conversion to slack-wire advance system by Barry Basset. The tank was checked, painted and HRD-lined, with a new seat and tool-box assembly.

A multiple-plate clutch is fitted, alongside a custom wide clutch-cover. Two big-port heads are fitted with oversize valves, titanium valve-collets and stainless pushrod covers and gland nuts. The crankcases were vapour-blasted and polished and the cylinder muffs were machined from solid billet stock by Trevor Southall. The cost for the UK rebuild of this engine, whose performance is described by the vendor as ‘simply awesome’, was over £6,000, including the machining for the supplied Gosset electric starter. FYG 413 has a V5C, current MOT and Road Tax (free). The engine history, bills for the rebuild and a rebuild CD are included. A ‘state of the art’ Vincent.”

To simply, this is a non matching numbers bike. The performance of the machine is greater than that of a standard Rapide and may be greater then a Black Shadow.

The electric starter is not installed. I will supply all that is needed to install the starter motor if you wish to do so. 12 volt system uses a larger battery- most likely to fire the starter.

I have always started the bike the traditional way. It is indeed a thrilling machine to ride.

At 450 pounds motivated by 45-55 very torquey horses, the Vincent is a vintage bike that needs make no apologies or concessions to modern traffic, assuming you’re wary of the bike’s period drum brakes and infamously unforgiving handling.

As you may have noticed in the listing, the bike is available with the choice of two different speedometers. The larger, pie-plate sized item is a very iconic look for a Vincent, but I think I actually prefer the underhand sweep of the smaller, more conservative 120mph item. Luckily, you have a choice!

It’s obviously not a numbers-matching machine, and the reserve hasn’t been met yet, but the bidding is still at pretty bargain Vincent levels. I’m curious to see what this one goes for.

About the only downside I can see to owning one is the fact that some people will see that “HRD” badge and assume it’s some sort of Harley Davidson…

-tad

Thanks to reader Jess for pointing this one out. In the minds of motorcyclists of a certain age, no motorcycle can really match the aura and mystique of a v-twin Vincent. Expensive, powerful, dripping with exotic technology, and produced only in muted colors that were either serious or sinister, depending on whether or not you’d had one try to kill you or not…

Hunter S Thompson referred to the Vincent Black Shadow in his writing, using the iconic name as shorthand for everything mysterious and dangerous about motorcycles: “It is like riding a Vincent Black Shadow, which would outrun an F-86 jet fighter on the take-off runway, but at the end, the F-86 would go airborne and the Vincent would not, and there was no point in trying to turn it…”

Even if you’ve never seen a Vincent, the picture in your head is probably pretty close after reading that.

Phil C Vincent began making motorcycles during the 1920’s by slotting other manufacturer’s engines and transmissions into frames he designed. His enterprise met with some success, and this allowed the burgeoning company to design its own powerplant. The 500cc single formed the basis of the v-twin that Vincent’s Rapide was literally built around: while the original 1936 “Series A” used a traditional frame, the later “Series B” model was almost completely frameless, with the steering head bolted directly to the front cylinder and the rear suspension to the gearbox.

Which sounds an awful lot like a Ducati Panigale, except that the Ducati uses a less advanced style of front suspension…Unhappy with the flexing that plagues telescopic forks to this day, Vincent used a variation of the girder front end. This girder front end was advanced in theory, although limited damping of the era did lead to notoriously unforgiving handling.

Quite literally, there was nothing on the road like it at the time, and you could argue that there hasn’t been anything like it since.

The v-twin came in two performance flavors. The bike being offered is the lower-spec Rapide, not the evocatively-named Black Shadow, although many of these have been improved to the point where performance differences are irrelevant. In this case, it looks like it’s been cosmetically updated to match the sinister black of the Shadow as well…

From the original eBay listing: 1952 Vincent Rapide for Sale

Up for grabs…Here’s a very nice 1952 Vincent Rapide 1000.  Has been given a light custom treatment with many smart and usable upgrades.  Has black engine with two front cylinder heads (a la Lightning).  Fitted with Lightning front brakes and center pull brake cables; acentuated with extended cam arms in the front.  Extended intake manifolds with Amal Concentric carburetors.  Magneto has been replaced with points and coil, generator replaced with Alton alternator.  All 12V electrics.  Rare 5″ 150 mph Smiths chronometric speedometer.  Numbers on frame headstock are “RC/1/5878″.  Numbers on rear frame section are “RC 8835C”.  Engine case halves match (both stamped “XX 59″), engine number is “F10 AB/1/8128″.  Altogether, an excellent road going package.  Feel free to call or email with any questions.  Good luck!

I’m a big fan of “artistic” photography, although I’d prefer clean, unretouched shots when you’re using those pictures to sell a $50,000 motorcycle. We’re just north of that now, with active bidding and the reserve not yet met. It’s not a real Black Shadow, but it’s pretty clear this is a gorgeous bike, one of the most desirable and collectable and technically interesting machines ever built.

-tad