Vincent Comet

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The post-war Vincents simply bristled with clever ideas, many of which were decades ahead of their time.

And as for the performance: at a time when even a very good super sports bike was pushed to scrape over 100mph, the touring ‘big twin’ Vincent would burble along all day at well over the magic ton. The sports version of the firm's touring Rapide, the Black Shadow, was a genuine 130mph superbike and for the very, very brave the full race spec Lightning was good for 150mph.

Essentially a Rapide V-twin minus its rear cylinder, the Series C Vincent Comet was built from 1949 to 1954 and was offered to the same degree of refinement as its bigger sibling, needless to say with lesser performance. Even so, it was still capable of 90mph while returning excellent economy making an ideal touring mount for the discerning rider who placed civility and manners ahead of the outright performance of the bigger machine.

The Series C was the first single cylinder 500cc Vincent to be equipped with the Girdraulic forks, replacing the earlier Brampton girders of the Series B, which gave the rigidity of girder forks with the damping control of telescopic forks. It was an inexpensive machine to produce when compared with its 1,000cc V-twin stable mate, but did not sell as well as the makers had hoped and was dropped from the range with the advent of the Series D which was introduced for the 1954 season.

Dating from 1951, the Series C Vincent Comet on offer here has been in long time storage as part of a private collection and underneath the dust appears to be complete and original. The interval between the frame number and the engine number of exactly 1800 suggests this is a ‘matching numbers’ machine, rare in itself as many have been built out of parts.

Although the bike has no registration document, it does come with two old MOTs from 1964 and 1966 and a DVLA letter of intent dated 1983 which should provide enough evidence with the DVLA V765 scheme to register it for road use. The LOF registration number was first issued in Birmingham.

Being offered here at a very attractive guide price, this is a rare opportunity to acquire a most desirable machine that appears highly correct and original and, with any luck, will only require careful recommissioning before it can be put back into use.