More Vincent Engine Information

Reader Contribution by Staff
Published on July 11, 2017
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A few months back (Flywheel Forum, October/November 2015) I sent you some information about a Vincent “sailboat” engine (see photo, top). In addition, I had a few questions about a 2 hp Witte hit-and-miss. The Witte is now running and will soon be mounted on a cart. The Vincent turns out to be somewhat of an interesting story. It was made by Vincent, the British motorcycle manufacturer, but not for sail boats. It was an attempt to revive the company after it quit making motorcycles in 1955, and the engine was developed for lawn mowers and the first personal watercraft. My engine was used in the Amanda Water Scooter. It is a 100cc 2.1 hp Vincent 75. Neither the lawn mower nor the Scooter managed to save Vincent. The lawn mower had too much torque and the Scooter engine generated such high heat that it melted the fiberglass used in the Scooter and caused them to sink. Both are rumored to have caused the final demise of Vincent. There are numerous videos on the internet.

Robert Lundberg, blundberg50@gmail.com


We had a suspicion your engine was related to the Vincent Amanda, a fact borne out by your research and further supported by photographs from the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, which has in its collection both an Amanda Water Scooter (middle) and a Vincent lawn mower (bottom). Looking at other photos, we think your engine was originally installed in an Amanda Water Scooter owing to its fan-cooling cowling. The lawn mowers don’t appear to have utilized this feature, only the Water Scooters. – GEM

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