THE LEGENDARY BRITISH CLASSIC BLACK

                  THE LEGENDARY BRITISH CLASSIC BLACK

A rare example of the 'world's first superbike', which was tucked away in a utility cupboard for 30 years, is set to sell for £40,000.

The owner of the 1953 Vincent Black Shadow removed its mudguards and wheels to fit it into the tiny cupboard, where it nestled among old paint pots, phone directories and a vinyl record collection.

Bob Boardman, a railwayman from Liverpool, bought the second-hand bike for £125 in 1965. It was last ridden in 1969 and has done just 22,000 miles.

When it was made, Britain ruled the motorcycle world, the Black Shadow was the fastest bike of its day with a top speed of 125mph.

Vincent started making it in 1948 after demands for a more "sports orientated model" of its Rapide bike but only made about 1,700 of the hand-built model.

Bob saw the bike advertised in the Vincent Club magazine in July 1965 with just 14,000 miles on the clock

He couldn't afford the £125 cost, the equivalent of about £2,000 today, but convinced the owner to take instalments.

Once he got the machine home he attached a side car and used it to transport his wife and three children around, along with their tent, sleeping bags, deck chairs, clothes and a primus stove.

Bob became unwell in 1969 and was no longer able to ride the bike. When he died, his son Rob moved the bike into his utility cupboard, where it remained untouched until his recent death.

Rob’s sister hopes it will now find a new home with someone who will ride it again.

Mark Bryan, a motorcycle specialist at H and H, said: “It’s rare to find one that’s not been used for that length of time.

“I think they might have taken it out a couple of times back in the 80s just to keep it going, but it hasn't seen the light of day since the 90s.

“It will still work, it just needs a bit of recommissioning.

“It’s a very original bike and it still has its 1969 tax disc.”

He added: “Black Shadows always attract a lot of interest and it’s very unusual to find one that’s never been restored. This still has the same paint it came out of the factory with.

“They didn’t make loads of them and they were quite expensive for the time - in car terms they would be like the Aston Martin of the bike world.”

The auction will take place at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire, on October 13.

Every motorcyclist dreams of hearing the magic phrase: “You know, I know where there’s this old bike that’s been sitting at the back of this garage for years …” With those momentous words, the hunt begins. Too often the machine revealed is a worthless Hondazukimaha pile of hopeless oxidation, but sometimes, it’s a collector’s dream: a genuine classic motorcycle. The Vincent in the Barn (Motorbooks, 2009) by Tom Cotter offers 40 stories of motorcycle-hunting dreams come true. This excerpt is from Chapter 2, “Intriguing Circumstances,” and tells the story of how the Vincent Black Lightning went from collector to collector, even though every one of them was unwilling to part with it. 

Reg Dearden was all set to run for the speed record at Bonneville in 1950. His Vincent Black Lightning was one of the fastest production motorcycles ever constructed and his was even faster. One of only 32 (some historians put the number at 31) Lightnings built, this rare version was retrofitted by the factory with the installation of a supercharger.

Dearden hoped to break the 173.625-mile-per-hour world speed record that had been set in 1937 by a BMW.

Additionally, this particular Black Lightning’s frame was stretched by 6 inches—under the direct supervision of company founder Phil Vincent—in order to improve the bike’s straight-line stability.

The bike was beautiful, glossy black and purpose-built for speed. Dearden hired famed racer Les Graham to ride the bike. But Graham was killed while racing on a Norton at the Isle of Man and the Vincent never made a single run.

British aviation authorities refused to let Dearden transport the motorcycle from England to the United States in his personal Cessna, so Dearden put the Vincent into storage for 20 years. Around 1970, Dearden decided to part with the bike, and it appeared for sale in a Cycle World magazine advertisement.

When Michael Manning from Philadelphia expressed interest in purchasing the rare Vincent, the English government stepped in and put a halt to the sale.

“The Vincent Black Lightning was deemed a national treasure of England, and it was not allowed to leave the country,” said Somer Hooker, a Vincent expert from the Nashville area. “But the eccentric Manning was determined to own the rare bike.”

Manning, with the help of some nonloyal British motorcycle enthusiasts, quietly purchased the bike and disassembled it. He shipped it back in boxes, never attracting the attention of customs agents in England or the United States.

Manning, who owned a couple of Vincents but was not a serious collector, had the bike reassembled and brought to Shadow Lake, a huge Vincent rally in Canada. Manning showed up with the Vincent in the back of his van, among more than 150 other Vincents and scores of enthusiasts from all over the world attending the event. The extremely low-mileage bike—probably less than 100 miles—was on display at the rally when Manning got a wild idea: He promised to fire up the rare motorcycle with the original 20-plus-year-old lubricants in the crank