Vincent Black Shadow to the new specifications. The prototype Black Shadow had engine number F10AB/1B/558 in frame R2549, and was completed on 16 February 1948. The bike was road tested by Charles Markham in Motor Cycling May 1948, during which test the bike was reported to have reached . The Black Shadow was officially introduced at the 1948 Motorcycle Show at Earls Court in London. The Black Shadows were built with the same labour-intensive hand-fitting of bearings and major engine parts that Vincent had used prior to the war. Official records say that 1774 Vincent Black Shadows were made. Vincent also built 15
Edward the Black Prince possible that this is where the title had its origins. The French soldier Philippe de Mézières refers to Edward as the greatest of the "black boars" – those aggressors who had done so much to disrupt relations within Christendom. Other French writers made similar associations, and Peter Hoskins reports that an oral tradition of "L'Homme Noir", who had passed by with an army, survived in southern France until recent years. In Shakespeare's "Henry V", the King of France alludes to "that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales". John Speed reported in 1611 that the Black Prince was so named