When first road tested by the press in 1946, the new Vincent twin's top speed was listed as "unobtainable." And many a motorcyclist remembers that day when out for a ride he first heard the snarl of another bike pull up alongside. Black it was, and mysterious. But the rider seemed friendly enough, offering a polite wave before dropping the clutch and pulling ahead. The foolish ones tried to keep up and found themselves pushing their bikes by the side of the road while the sound of the Vincent's distinctive exhaust note faded off into the distance.

Black Shadow. Nothing on two wheels or four could compare--in top speed, but also in reliability, endurance, comfort, safety, in short, overall. And long after that fateful day, riders who had been so casually passed would tell their friends the tale and then lapse into silence wondering where it was that Black Shadow was heading. Perhaps to a pub a few hundred miles up the road, perhaps to gaze over the vast expanse of the Pacific from a secluded peak.

Wherever that Shadow went, like this one, it left behind the legend.