Britain’s Vincent Motorcycles is often termed as “Makers of World’s Fastest Motorcycles”
2W and 3W manufacturing giant, Bajaj Auto Ltd has acquired the rights for the name Vincent. Bajaj has likely acquired HRD and Egli-Vincent brands as well. Vincent brand was previously owned by Dave Holder & Family and now, it seems that Bajaj owns the rights.
Vincent Motorcycles was a British motorcycle manufacturer founded by Philip Vincent. He bought HRD and started producing motorcycles as HRD Vincent, which eventually became Vincent Engineers. Company’s most famous creation is the 1948 Vincent Black Shadow, which was the fastest bike in the world at that time.
A Vincent Black Lightning broke the record of the highest price ever paid for a 2-wheeler at around Rs. 6 crore in 2018. It is extremely rare as only 31 models were ever made. That particular piece was used to set Australia’s land speed record of 228 km/h at that time by Jack Ehret. A Black Shadow did 241.9 km/h once after the rider stripped all of his clothes except for his boxers and was famously called “The Bathing Suit Bike”. Hey, that’s real history.
Bajaj Vincent Motorcycle
A story goes that Mr. Shankar Ramanan ordered a special black shadow which he took back to India and created a speed record at Juhu Aerodrome near Mumbai. Bajaj has not given any official statement regarding this update. But Vincent trademark along with (rumoured) HRD and Egli-Vincent seem to be Bajaj’s intellectual properties now.
It is not yet known if Bajaj is looking to make a speed record shattering machine or is reviving a classic brand to use Vincent as a sub-brand of retro classic motorcycles like Royal Enfield. Or we can expect a complete revival of Vincent brand to operate as its own entity under Bajaj’s umbrella of course. The latter seems to be a logical and reasonable possibility, isn’t it?
We have BSA, Jawa and Yezdi that have been revived by Classic legends under Mahindra’s umbrella. TVS Motor also acquired British brand Norton Motorcycles recently. We can expect something similar with Bajaj’s acquisition of Vincent brand.
Bajaj Version Of Triumph Motorcycles
Bajaj has also partnered up with Triumph to launch affordable motorcycles. But those motorcycles will be sold as Triumph. It is likely that Bajaj uses this revived Vincent brand to launch their version of upcoming Triumph motorcycles. They partnered with KTM to launch KTM motorcycles in India and used tech to launch new Pulsar and Dominar motorcycles. Same could be repeated with Triumph and Vincent brand names.
Demand for nostalgic retro classic motorcycles are on the rise not just here in India, but also worldwide. As of now, it is Royal Enfield which is leading the race by a huge margin. Not only in India, but even in select global markets. Most likely because there is no real competition.
This is why other brands are trying to enter this space. In recent years we have seen Mahindra revive Jawa, Yezdi and BSA. With a brand like Vincent, Bajaj can expect to create a big impact in the retro classic motorcycle segment. And take on the leaders Royal Enfield. More details are expected to be revealed soon.
