Historic Vincent: Gunga Din

By Robert Smith
Published on March 30, 2010
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Test bed for the Black Shadow and the immortal Black Lightning, Gunga Din, the most famous Vincent of all time, has finally been restored.
Test bed for the Black Shadow and the immortal Black Lightning, Gunga Din, the most famous Vincent of all time, has finally been restored.
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Lovely damping knob flanked by Smiths Chronometric tach.
Lovely damping knob flanked by Smiths Chronometric tach.
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Dents in the gas tank prove it’s the real thing: Compare Gunga Din’s tank as photographed by Sid Biberman at a 1953 Vincent Rally and today.
Dents in the gas tank prove it’s the real thing: Compare Gunga Din’s tank as photographed by Sid Biberman at a 1953 Vincent Rally and today.
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Dents in the gas tank prove it’s the real thing: Compare Gunga Din’s tank as photographed by Sid Biberman at a 1953 Vincent Rally and today.
Dents in the gas tank prove it’s the real thing: Compare Gunga Din’s tank as photographed by Sid Biberman at a 1953 Vincent Rally and today.
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Rearset controls with unique — and original — footpegs.
Rearset controls with unique — and original — footpegs.
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Correct and original Amal TT carbs.
Correct and original Amal TT carbs.
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Owner Paul Pflugfelder walks alongside as Somer Hooker rides Gunga Din past the judges table at last year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the first to feature motorcycles.
Owner Paul Pflugfelder walks alongside as Somer Hooker rides Gunga Din past the judges table at last year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the first to feature motorcycles.
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Machined rear friction rod for the suspended seat.
Machined rear friction rod for the suspended seat.
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Gunga Din as it looked when found by Peter Gerrish in 1960 at the old Vincent factory in Stevenage, England. Vincent quit making motorcycles in 1955.
Gunga Din as it looked when found by Peter Gerrish in 1960 at the old Vincent factory in Stevenage, England. Vincent quit making motorcycles in 1955.

Few motorcycles achieve such acclaim — or notoriety — that they’re individually named: Cook Neilson’s Ducati racer earned the tag “Old Blue,” and the oil-spreading, TT-winning Triumph Trident will forever be known as “Slippery Sam.” And a 1947 Vincent factory hack became the legendary test-bed race bike “Gunga Din.”

The story goes that it was Motor Cycling magazine road tester Charlie Markham who gave the experimental Vincent its name. The Rudyard Kipling poem “Gunga Din” tells the story of an Indian water-bearer who saves the life of his military superior, at which the latter declares, “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!” The implication? Markham’s realization that the motorcycle’s capabilities were beyond his own.

George Brown

One man who did have the measure of Gunga Din was Vincent factory tester, development man and racer George Brown. A chance meeting with company owner Philip Conrad Vincent in 1934 led to an offer of work in the fledgling company’s experimental department. Brown had been racing Velocettes until then, but his new position allowed him to spend time breathing extra fire into the Series A Vincent singles and twins to improve their competitiveness.

With his racing background, Brown soon became his own test rider, competing in short-circuit road racing on a Series A Comet, a 499cc single-cylinder machine, and running a 998cc Series A Rapide twin at over 100mph on the famous Brooklands banked circuit in southern England. At the time (the late 1930s), a flying lap of more than 100mph at Brooklands earned the rider a gold star pin (the award for which the BSA Gold Star was named), but you had to be a member of the British Motor Cycle Racing Club. Brown was not.

Gunga Din

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