When you look closely at this bike, it gets only more beautiful. There’s something in the combination of chrome and dark steel; something about its exposed machinery — that tugs at the emotions.

We can’t claim to be experts on the Vincent HRD brand, but you can bet we are fully paid up, card-carrying devotees of its looks.

Apparently the Black lightning, all stretched out straightline form, magnesium alloy elements and such, achieved a Land Speed Record at Bonneville, piloted by Rollei Free (that’s Rollei stretched out in his trunks in the gallery). You can read about the details here.

But with a vehicle like this, it’s not about the statistics. It’s about the soul.

Look at the bearded fellah in the gallery above deep in the eyes. You can see what this machine means to him. it’s not about the sum total of pistons and pushrods, it’s about the emotions that are stirred up in the rider; it’s about the experiences that are shored up by riding a machine of such passionate design; it’s about something transcendent, something life-affirming in a thing made by human hands for consumption of the human heart.

If looking at this beautiful bike won’t brighten up your monday, then nothing will.

The Vincent Black Shadow is famous for a lot of reasons. Released in the late-40s, into an era of post-war austerity, it was groundbreaking, intimidating and fast enough to turn a pilot’s eyelids inside out. It made such an impression that Hunter S Thompson still thought it was the last word in hellacious two-wheelers in 1970, 22 years after it was introduced.

“Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?” HST wondered in his legendary book ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. “The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds.

“The f***er’s not much for turning, but it’s pure hell on the straightaway. It’ll outrun the F-111 until takeoff.”

Of course, he got this all wrong. Vincent HRD, the Stevenage-based company that created the Black Shadow, went out of business in 1955. It was just too expensive for the market.  But Thompson was channeling the vibe.

The Shadow is as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat, highlighted by accents of chrome and bare alloy and a splash of gold coachlining on the curved fuel tank.

It was, still is, a gran turismo rather than a racer, but it’s underseat shock arrangement was still inspiring Yamaha GP bikes in the 1980s.

It helps to put the Black Shadow in context. This is a bike with a claimed top speed of 125mph that was built a decade before Britain’s first motorway. And they were built to last. Even now Black Shadows are bought to be ridden. The 998cc V-twin will tramp along the fast lane at 100mph on ribbed Dunlop Speedmaster tyres more suited to a wheelbarrow. Not bad for a 60-year-old bike.

And Rollie Free rode a Black Lightning, the stripped and tuned version of the Shadow, to 157mph at Bonneville while wearing just trunks and plimsolls.

I hate to think of motorcycles as investments, but a Black Shadow, that you can pick up for between £25–40,000, will outstrip just about anything you care to mention. And you can’t race an F-111 on a share certificate.

We all know that full face helmets are useful in a number of ways. Not only can they expose ones sculptural features to full view of the peeps on the side of the road as your growl past them, V-Twin burbling in a macho manner – but they can give a sense of rebellious derring-do.

Stylistic statements aside, we’re wondering whether the urge to look sexy is worth risking a full-on facial injury for. We know how the folk at Ruby feel.

Coming straight out of the 16th arrondisment rather than the badlands of New Mexico, Les Ateliers Ruby are purveyors of supremely refined bespoke helmets, scarves and other paraphenalia that tap into a strange European ‘cooling’ of things essentially American and greaser. The website is worthing checking out, just for the soundtrack.

Somewhere in the fashion world a residual ache for the inherent cool of motorcycles glows. Ruby offer a complete personalisation service. You can order your very own design rendered in beautiful carbon fibre, leather lined magnificence. You just need the Vincent. Problem is, to quote Hunter S Thompson the late, great godfather of Gonzo, if you met the nicest people on a Honda, on Vincent Black Shadows you met nutters.

“That is the attitude of the New Age superbike freak, and I am one of them. On some days they are about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The Vincent just killed you a lot faster than a superbike will. A fool couldn’t ride the Vincent Black Shadow more than once, but a fool can ride a Ducati 900 many times, and it will always be bloodcurdling kind of fun. That is the Curse of Speed which has plagued me all my life. I am a slave to it. On my tombstone they will carve, “IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME.”

And therein lies the rub. The worlds of fashion and trend are far removed from the thigh burning, greasy reality of owning a classically brutal bike. That’s why, we suppose, hi tech superbikes make perfect sense. But gimme a 1952 Vincent any day.

Click here to view the embedded video.