Vincent Black Shadow New Zealand. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote "If you rode the Black Shadow at top speed for any length of time, you would almost certainly die. That is why there are not many life members of the Vincent Black Shadow Society." The bike is mentioned several times in Thompson's 1971 novel, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". Black Shadow serial number F10AB/1B/900 was a specially prepared model sold to American John Edgar for the purpose of challenging the American land speed record for motorcycles. The goal was to take the AMA National Class A flying-mile record then held by Joe
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