Will The Vincent Black Shadow Return To Production… Via India?

[advrider]

Welp, there goes another zombie brand. India’s moto-press is now telling us that the Vincent marque, one of the most legendary and respected brands of all two-wheeled history, has been acquired by Bajaj. Now, Bajaj can build bikes and plaster the Vincent badge on them.

Apparently, this has been in place for about five years—nobody noticed until now, though. That’s odd, because given the mystique around the Vincent name (it built some of the world’s fastest bikes during its 1928-1955 history), you’d think someone would have taken note.

Bajaj is still a relatively unfamiliar name to many European and North American riders (unless they’re involved with heavy equipment, where Bajaj is very well-known indeed). But, Bajaj is one of the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturers, selling out massive production runs in its home market every year and exporting machines to developing nations. And of course, Bajaj is a huge stakeholder in KTM, building their small-bore street machines in Indian factories. If you’ve ridden a KTM 390 or Husqvarna 401, you’ve ridden a bike built by Bajaj.

This sort of arrangement is the in thing these days, for Indian manufacturers—Royal Enfields are made in India, but they bear a badge that saw its genesis in the UK, more than a century ago. Mahindra is backing BSA’s revival (and also selling Jawa-branded machines in some markets). Both those companies have opted for a hybrid designed-in-England, built-in-India model, and it would be unsurprising if Bajaj did the something similar with a Vincent reboot. Given the company’s ties to the European continent, maybe it would be designed-in-Austria, built-in-India?

Who knows. This is not the only brand that Bajaj appears willing to revitalize, either. Bajaj also owns some rights to the Excelsior-Henderson marque, although we’ve seen little action on that front.

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