New Life For An Old Favorite

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Photo By Kel Edge

A long look in the rearview mirror at all our motorcycling yesterdays has become increasingly commonplace these days. Triumph’s Bonneville and Scrambler, Royal Enfield’s Bullet and Ducati’s Sport Classics prove the point well, as does this homage to Phillip Irving’s immortal V-twin, the latest in a line of revivals.

Not all revivals have been met with excitement though. Few retro bikes aroused such instant disapproval as the Honda-engined Vincent Black Lightning that Bernard Li hoped to have on the market by 2004. Li somehow succeeded in registering the trademark of Britain’s most iconic brand in the U.S., and while Li’s Vincent appears dead — mercifully, some would say — its existence may help explain the contrasting acclaim being accorded to a more faithful revival. Australians Ken Horner, 53, and brother Barry, 52, have taken aim at a contemporary revival of the same marque, under the Irving Vincent name.

From racing classics to building one

The project’s origins lie in Ken’s career as a successful sidecar racer in the 1970s with a self-built 1,300cc Vincent outfit. He later retired from racing, and in 1977 started his own engineering company, Melbourne, Australia-based K.H. Equipment Pty., leaving brother Barry to fly the family flag on three wheels. Barry did so by finishing a close second in the Australian GP at Bathurst one year and by leading into the last lap there in another race, only for his chain to break on the run to the flag: Disappointments don’t come bitterer than that.

Meanwhile, K.H. Equipment Pty. worked its way to success manufacturing air starter motors for the mining and fuel
exploration (i.e., oil and natural gas) industries and now exports half its production to China and the U.S. Importantly to this project, the company also manufactures trick race components for one of Australia’s leading V8 Holden Supercar teams.

In fact, it was thanks to their race car connections that the brothers came into contact with legendary Aussie designer Phil Irving, the creator of the Vincent 50-degree V-twin and, later on, Australia’s title-winning Repco race engine, which took Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme to a pair of F1 World Championships in 1966-1967.

“I first met Phil around 1971 when I was racing the Vincent, and he was living here in Melbourne, working on the Formula 5000 Repco engine,” recalls Ken. “He had a small sideline dealing in Vincent parts, which were increasingly hard to get, and I ordered an oil pump from him and went to his house to collect it. After that, I had a direct phone line to him, same as anyone who had a Vincent and needed parts or advice. Then Barry started to deal with him on another front, and we got to know him more closely.”