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First run – so far, so good
Our bikes: 1952
Vincent Touring Rapide
(Guy 'Guido' Allen, April 2025)
We finally got the big Brit out for a brief gallop
This feels like a long-term project, even though it began
just seven months ago. It was last October that I was
wrangling with the helpful Nick
Smith at Classic Avenue, located in the
wonderfully-named Marina Del Ray, in California.
He had a recently restored Vincent Rapide Series C up for
auction and the bidding had stalled. Though I had never
met Nick, we have friends in common (such as author Ian Falloon and Jon Munn over at Classic Style).
So corresponding with him was easy.
This is one of those touchstone motorcycles with a giant legend behind it – something that would be fantastic to own and use.
With the auction over and no sale, I asked the dangerous
question: how much would it take to buy the Vincent? He
gave me a number that meant it would land in Australia for
about Au$67,000 (US$43,000, GB£32,000). Okay, a lot of
money. But it was well under the going rate for an
equivalent machine on the local market.
Now is a good time to say that I wasn't interested in
buying it and turning over for a profit. It was simply
seen as a one-off chance to pick up a Vincent twin and
play with it. With a bit of luck, some years down the
track, I'd get my money back.
Aside from price, this bike got my attention for two
other reasons: the Ohio-based owner had it long-term –
since 1980; Plus it had undergone a recent engine and
cosmetic freshen-up. On the latter, Nick kept reminding
me, while I was dithering over the purchase, the
pinstriping on the fuel tank had been done in gold
leaf!
Gold leaf is nice, but the engine rebuild was by far the
most important factor. Receipts were shown, along with a
video of the owner starting and riding it – albeit just
for a brief lap of their driveway. I've since discovered
the engine had run for maybe half-an-hour since the
rebuild had been completed.
What the hell, let's buy it. That was October and it took
until late February for it to land – keep in mind we had
to overcome Christmas and New Year holidays. In any case,
Jon Munn of Classic Style kindly
handled the importation with zero fuss and at a very
reasonable cost.
There is always an element of risk with long-distance
purchases like this, particularly when they are over 70
years of age, and so I was keen to nail down some details.
A membership with the Vincent HRD
Owners Club in the UK enabled me to request a
history of the machine.
The report was good news. Rather than being a 1953 Series
C, it was a year earlier. More importantly, it had the
combination of engine, main frame and rear frame it left
the factory with way back in March of that year. None of
this changes how the bike rides, but it has a big
influence on its eventual resale value.
Of course I had to start it once the thing was rolled
into the shed. Old mate and Vincent expert Phil Pilgrim,
who runs the Meriden
Triumph-focussed Union Jack Motorcycles spares business,
warned me to drain the oil out of the crankcases before
kicking it over. It's a dry-sump design and apparently
isn't great at scavenging an overload of lubricant.
Fresh engine oil, new fuel, tickle the carbs and it
started on the third kick. Amazing, given it hadn't run
for six or more months.
By now I would usually have something like this
registered on club plates, but lots of details have got in
the way. The headlight has needed sorting from a dodgy car
unit for a left-hand-drive market into something more
acceptable. I won't bore you with the details, other than
to say with six-volt electrics in play in a very old
design things are not straight-forward. More on that,
later.
There were a few other little details, like the proper
speedo cable, sorting out the battery box, setting up the
twin rear brakes...you get the picture.
I also need to switch over the tyres, which are Dunlop
K81 TT100s – a good choice, but these date back to (I
suspect) the 1980s. The short version is I'm confident
we'll get it all worked out in the next couple of weeks.
With some of the basics sorted and a little time on my
hands, I finally got to take the thing for a brief squirt.
The control set-up is a right-side gearshift – one-up and
three-down, with that genius fitting of a hand-operated
neutral-finder lever.
It's also running two single leading shoe drum brakes at
each end – good spec for the time.
What I immediately liked was how user-friendly it is for
the period. You have to be confident and get on the
throttle and feed it in as the engine winds up.
This was a short run, but we managed to row it through
all the gears several times and see enough speed to get
the sense this bike has long legs that could in fact live
up the 'Touring' designation. The suspension is halfway
decent and the brakes work.
So far so good. Watch this space...
***
I give you my Vincent
A little whimsy...an ode to young love on YouTube, involving a 1952 Vincent, created and sung by Richard Thompson.
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