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Took recently-widowed mate for mood-boost trip to the fair city of Excreta to wallow in bike porn at Bridge Motors: Bee-YOO-tiful '53 Black Shadow as pretty as when it was first wheeled out from the factory. £35k restoration costs mentioned but if I had the money in the piggy-bank I would have parted with it in an instant. Phworr....

Beautiful indeed. Was it for sale or for show, if for sale how much of my my lottery money will I part with should I......

To be honest, don't know. It's obviously now a permanent fixture (pic not too good because they've sealed it in a glass case to stop the likes of me running our sticky fingers over it); £35k restoration costs would suggest a figure considerably in excess of that for a retail price, but on the other hand they're not building too many '53's nowadays so scarcity value and cachet means that it'll probably end up as a pension fund asset that's locked away and never used again. Last of the real bikes in my view, and simply drop-dead gorgeous. Sigh.

The 1947/48 Prototype Black Shadow with my Father on the right

Both great pictures. Almost worth the 400 mile round trip to Exeter to see that Vincent. Beautiful!

My earliest memory of drooling over a bike was standing with my best mate, at the bottom of the Hilltown in Dundee studying every detail of a Black Shadow that was parked up.

Think they'd pump the front tyre up!

ned1 wrote:The 1947/48 Prototype Black Shadow with my Father on the right

Photo with relative touch, brilliant! How did they get that lump on to the work bench?

Probably in individual parts, the bigger question is how did they get it off............

Quote
"How did they get that lump on to the work bench?"

boxerscott wrote:

ned1 wrote:The 1947/48 Prototype Black Shadow with my Father on the right

Photo with relative touch, brilliant! How did they get that lump on to the work bench?

They're from Yorkshire.

One of em lifted the bike in the air, while the other one put the table underneath it.

Corvus wrote:

boxerscott wrote:

ned1 wrote:The 1947/48 Prototype Black Shadow with my Father on the right

Photo with relative touch, brilliant! How did they get that lump on to the work bench?

They're from Yorkshire.

One of em lifted the bike in the air, while the other one put the table underneath it.

And now they're both standing and trying to remember why!!

Merecat wrote:

Corvus wrote:

boxerscott wrote:

ned1 wrote:The 1947/48 Prototype Black Shadow with my Father on the right

Photo with relative touch, brilliant! How did they get that lump on to the work bench?

They're from Yorkshire.

One of em lifted the bike in the air, while the other one put the table underneath it.

And now they're both standing and trying to remember why!!

Yeah that's about right for Yorkshiremen!

They're looking a bit stumped.

Geddit?

Ho ho ho.

Jumping on the bandwagon I would just like to say I once had a go on Comet the 500 single based on half a Shaddow engine or was the Shaddow two Comet engines? Anyhoo! It was an opportunity I was not going to miss. The bike had been assembled over the course of two years from a basket of bits by a work collegue. He got it running (but not sorted) on the Tuesday before he emigrated on the Thursday (the buyer was collecting the bike on the Wednesday). I went over on the Tuesday evening and had a three miles ride just to say I had ridden it. The throttle response was incredible, the kickstart was terrible other than that I don't remember much aout it as this all happened in 1982 but it was a treat.

It was the Comet my Farther raced,
If you are interested have a look at my web site.

The Teutonic Tangerine wrote:Jumping on the bandwagon I would just like to say I once had a go on Comet the 500 single based on half a Shaddow engine or was the Shaddow two Comet engines? .......

I seem to recall that legend has it that the single cylinder came first. The idea of a vee twin was an accident of two drawings of the comet on clear film being overlayed.

According to my memory's version of legend!

Memory does play tricks.