Vincent Grey Flash
AUGUST 1951: IT’S THE AUTO CYCLE UNION’S International Race Meeting at Thruxton circuit, Hampshire. The rain is lashing down, the sky is dark, spectators are sopping wet, but a certain teenager has baffled the crowds against all odds: John Surtees.
Despite the treacherous conditions at the Hampshire airfield circuit, Surtees has even beaten international motorcycle star Geoff Duke on some laps in the 1000cc race.
Surtees would, of course, go on to become one of the world’s greatest motorsport racers ever – on two wheels and four – but in August 1951 he’s a gangly teenage apprentice at Vincent on a fiver a week.
Surtees’ machine is the newly-marketed Vincent Grey Flash, which is an apt moniker – it made its name by going very fast on this very grey day.
A report from that race, published in on August 9, 1951 read: “The
