h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Honda's pitiful larceny of a great old English design has always annoyed me. They touted the 'unique' rear suspension as a breakthrough despite the fact that it is a poor copy of a sixty year old design. They even stole the name!!!

I am referring, of course, the the magnificent machines built by Peter Vincent during the post war to mid 1950's. The Vincent Rapide, the Vincent Black Shadow, the Vincent Black Lightning, the Vincent Black Knight and of course the anemic Vincent Comet.

These machines were brilliantly engineered with a post world war 2 design that set a benchmark for performance until the mid 1960's. I was privileged to own a 1951 Black Shadow, (I still can recite the engine number). I loved driving it on the roads in Panama, the throaty rumble of the engine, the acceleration, but unfortunately, the brakes were awful.

I would love to have another, but they are just too costly now. The front suspension was one of the best features of the machine, an incredibly strong assembly called the 'girdraulic' front fork. It also had the old Smiths chronometric speedometer that used a complicated clockworks to measure speed. The needle did not move smoothly but made nervous little jumps in response to changes in speed.

The bike has a large following with many regional clubs around the world dedicated to keeping the remaining machines running and on the road. They have regular rallies where row upon row of these lovely black machines are proudly displayed.

sorry, i've only got a very sketchy idea of the black widow, but your description of the Smiths dials is spot on. We bought a stretch Merc from the scrapyard for £400 while I was at University, and cannibalized the dashboard from my old Mini. The only problem being that the speedo would never quite tell you the speed you were doing now, only what you had been doing about 15 seconds ago. It didn't help that I'd calibrated the dials for Mini wheels, not big Merc ones. Thank God we were students and couldn't afford the fuel to get it above a stately 20 mph.