The Mystique of the Vincent Black Lightning

The Vincent HRD Motors Series C Rapide "Black Lightning"

Rollie Free on a Black Lightning at Bonneville, 1948

In the vintage motorcycle world, few machines command as much respect as the Vincent Black Lightning.  This bike realized the dream of RFC pilot Howard Raymond Davies, founder of HRD, who is said to have decided to build the world’s fastest motorcycles while held in a German prisoner camp in 1917.  After the war, he founded HRD Motors Ltd., which was bought by Phil Vincent in 1928.  HRD Motors built motorcycles using outsourced engines, mainly by J.A. Prestwich Industries (JAP), but after a disappointing performance by all three Vincent HRD entries in the 1934 Isle of Man TT, the company began building its own engines.  These included the 500cc single used in the Meteor and Comet models, and the 998cc v-twin used in the Rapide models, with minor changes between series.  This engine became the stuff of legend, and is the heart of Vincent hybrids such as the Vindian, Vincati, and Norvin, when placed in frames by other makers.  Introduced in 1948, the Vincent HRD Black Lightning was the racing version of the 1948 Series C Rapide, called the Black Shadow.  It was powered by the same 998cc, 50 degree v-twin engine, developing approximately 54 bhp at 5,700rpm, and was lightened from 458lbs to 380lbs by the use of magnesium components wherever possible, and removal of any parts not absolutely necessary to make it go, and go fast.  A solo racing seat was all you got, and when Rollie Free clocked 184.83mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in nothing but swimming trunks, sneakers, and a leather cap he removed even that, and stretched out over the rear mudguard, forehead on the tank.  Vincent Motors never achieved great commercial success (the last Vincent came off the production line a mere seven years after the introduction of the Black Shadow, in December of 1955), but their machines, and especially the Series C Rapides, quickly acquired an almost mythological aura about them.  Especially among Brit iron aficionados, they are the Holy Grail of motorcycling, and while there have been several attempts to revive the Vincent marque, nothing will ever replace the mystique of an original Black Lightning. 

The Vincent Black Lightning holds the distinction of being (to my knowledge) the only motorcycle to have a song dedicated to it:"1952 Vincent Black Lightning", by the great English guitarist and singer Richard Thompson (first recorded on his Rumor and Sigh, 1991).