Buying A Shadow
Buying a Shadow
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
CAN'T SAY I HAVEN'T BEEN WARNED.
A few years ago, when I wrote a column called "Saving for a Vincent," my friend Jeff Craig called from Pennsyl vania and said., "I had to call you. Four or five of my friends have phoned in the past two days and said. 'Hey Jeff, you know Egan. Why don't you tell him not to buy a Vincent."
“Why would they say that?” I asked naively.
“Because we belong to a club called Vincent Owners Anonymous. We’ve all owned Vincents and sold them.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, a couple of the guys have crashed, inexplicably, from sudden speed wobbles, and others of us have just had lots of...mechanical problems. Forget Vincents. They are more trouble than they’re worth.”
I took this under friendly advisement, but I did not forget Vincents.
Since long before and after this call, I have continued to collect books, literature and pictures of Rapides and Black Shadows from the little factory in Stevenage, England. In my garage I have a large calendar photo of a Black Shadow, and my office wall has an embossed tin sign advertising the Series C Black Shadow: “The World’s Fastest Standard Motorcycle. This is a Fact, Not a Slogan.” I even have three Vincent T-shirts in my T-shirt drawer.
Easy for Jeff to say, “Forget Vincents.” This is like an older man, weary from a troubled marriage, telling a teenager to forget women. Sometimes good advice is not wanted, even when we know it has a core of wisdom. We like to make our own mistakes. An active life, as nearly as I can tell, is nothing but a long series of errors and overcorrections.
So, having amended the Lord’s Prayer to read, “Lead us not into temptation-unless it’s something we really want,” I accepted a CIV assignment two months ago to fly down to Austin, Texas, and ride a 1951 Vincent Black Shadow for a full day and to report on its virtues, or lack of same. The bike belonged to a lawyer and Vincent collector named Herb Harris.
It was a Series C model, with Girdraulic forks, engine number 5708 and frame number 7608 (frame numbers are normally 1900 greater than engine numbers), which means it was made in late 1950, though sent to the U.S. and titled as a 1951. In other words, some full-fledged adult was riding around on this bike about the time I was struggling with tricycle dynamics and listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio.
Those who read the story in the September, 1998, issue may recall that I was quite pleased with the bike. It went fast, stopped well and handled beautifully. Also, it sounded good and looked stunning. I was not, in other words, deflected from my desires. When I got on the plane to fly home, I said to Herb and his partner in restoration, Stan Gillis, “I am going to go home and sell a couple of my bikes and start a Vincent fund tomorrow. I don’t suppose you'd want to sell your Shadow, would you?”
“No,” Herb said, “we just got this one restored and dialed-in. But we’ll help you find one. They’re out there.”
I made many phone calls to Vincent people, such as the legendary Vincent exponent and locator Summer Hooker of Nashville, and Dick Busby, the California Vincent specialist who’d done such a nice job building Herb’s engine. Phone calls Hew back and forth, the long-distance bill blossomed.
Meanwhile, I gritted my teeth, girded my loins, tossed logic out the window and sold two of the best bikes I’ve ever owned, my Harley-Davidson Road King and my Ducati 900SS-SP. I also sold my full-stack Marshall guitar amplifier. I believe this is called throwing furniture into the flames of desire. All proceeds went straight into the Vincent fund.
Two weeks later, I got a call from Herb. “Would you like to buy my Black Shadow?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I would.”
Seems in searching for a bike for me, Herb had run across a Black Shadow basketcase with a famous Texas dragracing history-the legendary Mel Thompson nudist bike. (Mel, I was told, had been a member ofthat smallest of minority groups, Vincent drag racers who live at nudist colonies.) Herb, being more interested in bikes with racing history than in having a restored “runner,” decided to sell the bike I rode and start yet another restoration.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I cleaned and washed my blue Ford van (as if to make a good first impression on an inanimate object) and drove out to the AHRMA vintage race weekend at Mid-Ohio, where Vincent happened to be the featured marque. My friend Bruce Finlayson went with me. We crashed in a motel room with my pal Mike Cecchini, who rode his BMW R100RS from Maryland with three buddies on Vincents.
At least 81 Vincents showed up, including “my” bike and the partially disassembled Mel Thompson dragbike. I got to shake hands with Summer Hooker and Dick Busby, whom I’d only met by phone, and lifelong Vincent expert and author “Big Sid” Biberman. Restorer Scott Dell let me and others take his Series A Rapide for a ride. I had dinner with the Vincent Owner’s Club. Total immersion.
Herb and I sat in his car and traded bank check for Vincent title, and then we loaded the Shadow securely into my van and Bruce and I headed for home. Just before we left Mid-Ohio, Dick Busby shook my hand and said. “Welcome to the Masochists’ Club.”
“Ha, ha!” I laughed, trying to take this comment as lightly as possible.
Masochists’ Club? A joke or another friendly warning?
No matter. I’ve been warned against everything in life that has ever turned out to be worth doing. And, of course, a couple of things that haven’t. There’s only one way to find out which is which. □
