Catch us if you can? (56)

Catch us if you can? (56)

1

The Horex motorcycle missed out on the modern age

With the bubble car in Germany dominant by this stage

Yet had Vincent made the Horex in their English factory

Then the Horex could have saved our motorcycle industry

Some say our motorcycles were hammered by the Yen

While others claim lathe turners were out of date by then

But had Vincent made the Horex at their works at Stevenage

With its state of art suspension

And its high-performance engine

We may well have thrashed the bikes made in Japan

Who found pleasure singing “catch us if you can?”

2

During the 1950s - never mind about the year

The Honda motorcycle was beginning to appear

Meanwhile the BSA was still selling like hot cakes

As were the Triumph twins and certain other makes

Some say our motorcycles were hammered by the Yen

While others claim lathe turners were out of date by then

But had Vincent made the Horex at their works at Stevenage

With its state of art suspension

And its high-performance engine

We may well have thrashed the bikes made in Japan

Who found pleasure singing “catch us if you can?”

3

In the middle of the sixties Dylan crashed his machine

With his bike just too powerful for a rider seen as green

By then the splendid Vincent was no longer being made

With the Honda, the new Horex dominating the bike trade

Some say our motorcycles were hammered by the Yen

While others claim lathe turners were out of date by then

But had Vincent made the Horex at their works at Stevenage

With its state of art suspension

And its high-performance engine

We may well have thrashed the bikes made in Japan

Who found pleasure singing “catch us if you can?”

4

Lathe turners back in Britain were forced out of the workplace

Now machinery was able to outsmart the human race

Japanese motorcycles had real shop appeal for sure

But the Horex was still better according to folk law

Some say our motorcycles were hammered by the Yen

While others claim lathe turners were out of date by then

But had Vincent made the Horex at their works at Stevenage

With its state of art suspension

And its high-performance engine

We may well have thrashed the bikes made in Japan

Who found pleasure singing “catch us if you can?”

So farewell to the Horex and the bike that might have been

Had the Horex been a Vincent while still a new machine

Vincent would still be in business and doing rather well

Thanks to German engineering much like BMW now

The End

© Frankie Espirit