Missing Link?
It’s a Missing Link in the ongoing revival of Britain’s historic bike brands. Triumph, Norton, Ariel, Métisse, Brough Superior, Matchless and now BSA – all these and other less famous names from Britain’s two-wheeled yesterdays have already been resurrected to join Royal Enfield, which never actually went away, in the born-again biking section of British motorcycling’s history store. But there’s still no sign of the real time revival of the biggest one of all – Vincent.
Ever since production at Vincent’s Stevenage works ceased in 1955, after founder Phil Vincent’s uncompromising insistence on the highest quality of manufacture and engineering, coupled with world-leading performance, was ultimately found to be sadly incompatible with also making a profit, there have been various attempts down the years to relaunch this historic marque. But all of them have been destined to fail in the face of the Holder family, which has owned the Vincent trademark since 1974, when Matt Holder acquired the name on purchasing the Harper Engineering Co., which in turn had acquired the factory drawings, tooling and trademarks after Phil Vincent shut up shop. The Holder family have consistently refused to even lease it out, let alone sell it for any sum of money they’ve so far been offered, and there’s certainly been no lack of potential buyers.
It must be said that the Holders have acted in a pretty rational way by choosing their enforcement targets carefully. Rather than waste legal fees on serving cease and desist orders on the likes of the late French Vincent guru Patrick Godet, or the Australian Horner brothers of Irving Vincent fame, who have essentially helped preserve global awareness of the brand, they’ve left them alone and focused instead on warning off major players, like the late Chinese-American car care products mogul, Bernard Li.
Li reckoned selling thousands of Vincent T-shirts entitled him to relaunch the Vincent brand with four models designed by James Parker and powered by Honda SP-02 V-twin Superbike engines. By the time he passed away at the age of62 in May 2008, having crashed his touring bike seemingly after suffering cardiac arrest, he’d apparently finally recognised that even in the USA, registering the Vincent trademark there in his name didn’t automatically entitle him to make Vincent motorcycles.
