1953 Vincent Comet Outfit Pictures
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Many thanks to Ray Ziel for this picture of himself sitting on his late father’s Vincent outfit taken in 1953. He was a motorcycle mechanic back in the 50′s & 60′s and owned his own repair business. Sadly, he died five years ago and this photo has been in an album and a source of nostalgia for most of Ray’s life. Ray has always wondered whether the bike was still in existence and as he has now hit 60 he’s got some spare time to investigate. Can anyone help Ray with this one?
We call mine the Coalhouse Comet
closely looking there’s a lot of similarities, tank dents, no front stands, stripped fork blades, cropped front mudguard, fantastic if it was the same bike. Here’s what I recently wrote about it:
Some time in the mid 60′s when the Rapide and Canterbury Carmobile were our family transport, Dad bought the Comet from a widow in Leicester, it was stored in her coalhouse and he paid £5 to buy it primarily as a donor for the Twin which was wearing out fast hauling Mam and us 4 boys around so it was never intended to be a project bike.
The parts were covered in cement dust and dirt and it was discovered that the deceased owner was a builder and the Comet had been used with a chassis and box for some time around Leicester building sites. There was no logbook or number plates returned with the parts, Dad didn’t really bother, they were just Vincent parts to him. A few months later he sold the magneto for £5 as it was no use for the twin.
I remember the forks were used and the RFM and also the UFM later, many of the other common parts had a spell on the twin until by the early 70′s everything was all pretty much worn out, the twin was taken apart and stored and we had a BMC J4 van in its place.
Dad offered me the Comet in the late 70′s to rebuild but I showed no interest in a lack lustre, dirty pile of worn out parts so I had a succession of mainly two stroke road and trials bikes starting with an Excelsior Consort to pass my test.
1999, Dad split his bike collection between his 4 sons and I was lucky enough to get the Vincents.
Dad helped me rebuild the Rapide first separating the large lumps was easy but Dad couldn’t remember which forks belonged to which bike and such like so in time honoured fashion we just chose the least worn parts for the job.
From that time I always had plans for the Comet, firstly to build another twin with a spare set of crankcases but Andrew Walker talked some sense when he advised to keep it as intended, a matching numbers Comet.
Maughans rebuilt the crank, Bob Dunn rebuilt the head, in fact he did all 3 at the same time, a good magneto was found and about 6k down the line it’s ready to go back together, hopefully the last of the spares will arrive today.
In 2000 Gordon Powell tried to trace the original registration number but all is lost, we know it went to St Andrews in Newcastle on 22/9/52
So unless new evidence surfaces it will be an age related number.