Photo of the Day The Winter Hoo-Hah 1981/1982 at Alex Nofstger's House

[Graham Smith]

Coburn Benson, Charlie Taylor and others. Photo courtesy: Bruce Metcalf.

To find out more about Coburn Benson, click HERE.

 

[flashvin]

Thats Doug Ferante in the Grey Vincent turtle neck. He lived or lives in the Amherst Mass. area. In the black HRD sweather I believe is Steve Lindblom. Steve still has his C Rapide. It's a bit crusty and is available. Where they all are I don't know but there's a wood stove and the room is in bare sheetrock . 1970's I'd bet

 

[bmetcalf]

I took the photo at the Winter Hoo-Hah at Alex Noftsger's in 1982. It might have been at some other home, though, it was later in the night.

 

[Charles Taylor]

That's remarkable. I don't remember Coburn at any of these events. He was not a party guy. But I was definitely at this one.That's me at the bottom of the frame-with hair-which, alas is no more. Coburn passed a couple of years ago, in Lewiston Maine.

Charlie

 

[Oldhaven]

I rode my Rapide to Coburn's memorial service at the Stanley Steamer Museum in Kingfield Maine in August 2019. I attended a few of Alex's get togethers, but missed this one. Coburn’s surprised us by showing up with a friend at a lobster bake section meeting at my house in Bowdoin Maine about 1980. I don’t think he ever slept.

Ron Franklin

 

[Charles Taylor]

I worked for Coburn at Merrimac Motorcycle Sales, in Haverhill Mass. The former "Shoe Capital of the World"-gritty old mill town. I learned a lot by keeping my trap shut and my eyes open. He sold me my first Vincent-a basket case, a 1950 transitional Shadow, thereby recovering the slave wages he'd been paying me. No flies on Ben. I commuted from Cambridge that winter, in all weathers on a 1938 R66 BMW. Wish I still had that bike, not to mention the 1950 Shadow It taught me a lot. It had the habit of running like the hammers of hell for several thousand miles, and then something terrible would happen, and I would have to fix it.

 

[Charles Taylor]

An example of the above "something terrible". I lost a tooth on the double gear while lurching around Manhattan in the Fall of 1966. This was the high bottom gear, and parts were scarce, but Ben had one, which he was willing to sell me at some outrageous price, now forgotten. So- armed with my bag of tools, Paul Richardson"s book, and a drop light I entered the steam tunnel where I stored my bike at the back of a parking garage on 82nd St. Conditions were not ideal, but the operation was a success. This was the first time I had gone into a Vincent gearbox, and I felt pretty proud of myself. Back then, there were two places that I knew of in US to get Vincent parts. Ben was one, and the other was Harry Bellville in Marysville Ohio. I didn't yet know about Gene Aucott in Philly.

 

[clevtrev]

Harry with my bike 1984.

 

[Charles Taylor]

Harry Bellville was famous for getting parts to you fast-by "putting them on the Hound"-Greyhound. That was faster than the USPO at the time, and there was no size and weight limit. In 1976 I attempted to buy him out. We had done an inventory, agreed on a price and a date when I was going to show up to pack and ship the stuff back to Ct. The day before my arrival, I reserved a U-Haul truck, and called him to make sure everything was in order But old Harry had changed his mind, and the deal was off. Oh well.

 

[TouringGodet]

I write a 50 Years Ago column for the So Cal section newsletter. I just read the Jan 1973 MPH no. 288, and in the North-East USA (as it was known back then) section review, it was reported that @Charles Taylor bought out Gene Aucott's Vincent spares.