Speed is expensive, as Ewan McGregor did not say in Trainspotting. The line was uttered by Philip Vincent, a Harrow-educated motorbike designer who made some of the world’s fastest – and priciest – motorbikes of the postwar era. This serviceable documentary narrated, a bit blandly, by McGregor tells Vincent’s story with contributions by fellow celebrity petrolheads Jay Leno and the Clash’s Paul Simonon.
Vincent was clearly a man of extraordinary drive and determination. He went into business aged 19, after being booted out of Cambridge for spending more time tinkering than studying engineering. When he opened a factory in Stevenage, they’d test drive the motorbikes on local roads; an employee once got caught doing 110 mph. This was in the 1930s, and when the case came to trial, the judge refused to believe a motorbike could reach such a speed, and dismissed the case, warning the police not to waste court time.
