Swiss engineer and racer Fritz Egli built a radical new chassis in 1967 for his racing Vincent engine with a large-diameter backbone tube that doubled as an oil tank. Racers responded by installing the Vincent V-twin motors in all manner of chassis, including the Norton (making the immortal NorVin, the first built by John Surtees around a Black Lightning motor). While the engine of the Vincent was the most powerful in the world until the early 1970s, its chassis had been designed in 1945, and designs like Norton’s Featherbed chassis had shown the way forward from 1950 onward. The postwar Vincent handled well enough to win unlimited-class races, along with plenty of sidecar events, and took plenty of straight-line races and records, including Rollie Free’s famous record at Bonneville at 150 MPH on a tuned Black Shadow model. The chassis was radical for the era, using the engine as a stressed member-it could be said the Vincent had no frame at all- with castings for the steering head and swingarm that were unconnected.
HONDA FG 314 MANUAL SERIES
After World War II, Philip Vincent and Phil Irving revealed a total redesign of their motor as a unit-construction V-twin with a minimalist frame, Brampton girder forks and a 120 MPH top speed: the Series B. Vincent-HRD built the fastest production motorcycles in the world from 1936-1973, originally starting with its Series A Rapide V-twin, which supplanted the Brough Superior SS100 as the top of the heap. This genuine Egli-Vincent is the hottest café racer ever built, with a British heart in a Swiss chassis that kept the Vincent name flying in competition and on the streets for decades after the factory closed.
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