Found this story & thought it might be of interest.
[quote]
NCRA members showing their classic bikes
(more photos in the article)
Chasing a Vincent Legend in Argentina
by Brian Day, Issue #63–Winter 2004
Lost in a gritty suburb 30km South of Buenos Aires, I knew we were in trouble when the gates of Eva Peron’s Children’s City flashed by for the third time. I’d traveled 8000 miles searching for a mythical Vincent that remained just out of reach. My vacation was trickling away, and I wondered if this particular “adventure” would end in disappointment.
Two months earlier, I’d spoken with Somer Hooker, a soft-spoken classic bike broker from Tennessee who owns seven Vincents. He was savvy enough to visit Argentina in 1991 when the government lifted its longstanding ban on exporting the muscular English machines as national treasures. He brought back 2 complete Vincents, 3 partial bikes (including a genuine Gray Flash) and six large crates of parts.
Hooker heard about a Vincent twin that was supposedly displayed outdoors as a police monument. Skeptical that such a valuable machine could remain unmolested in public, I was still intrigued, as it could be an important remnant of the Vincent legacy in South America. Somer’s tale stuck in my mind and I thought I might attempt to locate the bike and document its history.
The Vincent-HRD/Argentina connection is well documented in P.C. Vincent’s book “Fifty Years of the Marquee.” (Vincent Publishing Company, 1977) Vincents enjoyed racing success in Argentina, Brazil and even Cuba, winning events like Havana’s National Handicap Road Race of 1948. PCV’s father was Argentine, and PCV himself had dual citizenship in the UK and Argentina. The family owned a large Argentine estancia and part of the Stevenage works capital came from this source. The company enjoyed government contracts and these ties were deep enough so that the very first Series “B” Rapide was shipped directly from Stevenage to the Vincent agent in Buenos Aires.
Hooker said 800 Vincents were exported to Argentina from 1946 to 1950, most being Series “B” Rapides for the Argentine police. Period photos show leather-clad policemen parading their big twins before huge crowds, including Eva Duarte Peron.
Sending bikes to South America makes sense in the context of the UK’s post-war restrictions. British firms got more liberal allotments of scarce raw materials like aluminum and steel if their products were exported, returning money to the cash-starved home country. Export motorcycles kept the factory busy when the home market for big, fast, aristocratic motorcycles faded. In the dreary post-war days of shortages and reconstruction, Argentine exports kept the Vincent works humming."(more story at link)
motorbyte.com/mmm/pages/2004 … ure63b.htm[/quote]
I’d love to see her.
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