Coburn Benson

davidd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
I purchased my Grey Flash from Coburn Benson who was the "go to" Vincent person in New England. He sold his Vincents to purchase a Stanley. Below is a link to a video of him starting and running his 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Racer this past weekend. The photo was taken in 2008 when I stopped by with the restored Flash.

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Coburn's assistant does the warm up procedure.

David
 
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macvette

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Non-VOC Member
If you have the Vincent Gold Portfolio from Brooklands Books, there is an article from Cycle World in1971 featuring Benson
Mac
 

davidd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
The current picture on thevincent.com is an older photo of Coburn and the Flash. Who are the other two gents in the photo?

Steve,

Left to right: Coburn, Don Jones, and the rider John Clark.

Don Jones was an incredibly talented but mercurial mechanic. John was a great rider and is featured at speed in the Gold Portfolio on this bike. The bike is 3407 as I bought it. The tank ufm, and crank cases were off Don's Comet sidecar rig as there were several leaks in the original tanks from crashes and the bearings had walked out of the Flash cases. It was a good thing. They were red lining at 8300 rpm to stay competitive and the connecting rod broke. The Flash parts were being repaired so they were fine.

John was a great rider and is now running a machine shop in New York. After John raced the Flash, he raced in England for a few years. He and his brother-in-law raced Comets and I understand they did a good job. I would be interested if anyone remembers. John's bike was purchased by Team Obsolete and I think that Dave Roper rode it in the U.S. at least once. The link to John's Red Flash is:

http://www.teamobsolete.com/shop/vincent/vincent.html

CoburnBenson-Flash.jpg


The photo was taken at Merimack Motorcycle Sales (Coburn's dealership) which was at 125 River Street, Haverhill, MA USA

David
 
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davidd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
The first shot with all the bikes, I know some of them. Starting on the left is the Trident racer, Victor Olson's Brough, Rick Voshell's Prince, David Dunfey's Flash, and I do not know the rest except for the Prince which was owned by Mac McConney and was a Harper's rebuild with 8 miles on the clock. Mac sold it to Ron Burns. John Rodriguez (LeCheve) had a Rapide there at about this time, but I cannot see enough detail.

David
 

davidd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
The current photo on the Vincent.com is a photo of John Clark's Comet that he built in England that is in New York, which is owned by Team Obsolete. You can see additional photos in the link above.

http://www.thevincent.com/

David
 
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