The Supercharged Vincent Super Nero

Legendary motorcycle marques don't get more badass than Vincent. While they're better known for widow-makers like the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, there were other amazing machines. Example? This employee-developed one-off, the supercharged Vincent Super Nero.

How about this, take the 1500cc Vincent twin, drop the compression way down from 13:1 to 8:1 and strap an absolutely huge clutch-driven supercharger on the back? It's 1967, it was the jet age, what could go wrong? This must have been the logic vibrating in Vincent factory-employee George Brown when he took his Vincent Nero and created the Vincent Super Nero. With the bike putting down an approximate 125 HP George was able to pilot this monster to a world record standing-start mile speed of 128.665 MPH. George also tried to run the bike in the side car class presumably to have some place to carry his enormous stones. Unfortunately the supercharger drive failed and he didn't break that particular record.

George died in 1979 as a legend in British motorcycling, at one point he simultaneously held 24 world records, the most of any person in the category at the time. His Nero and Super Nero are still in one piece, on display at the National Motorcycle Museum in the UK. [BikeExif, MyVincent, MotorBikeSearch]