Builder Profile: GODET Motorcycles | Venhill

For four decades, one small workshop in Normandy has kept that distinction alive: restoring, racing, and building new machines worthy of the name.

Widely recognised as the world's leading Vincent specialist, GODET Motorcycles occupies a unique position in the classic motorcycle world: part restorer, part manufacturer, part racing team, and entirely obsessed with one of the most extraordinary engines ever built.

 The company was founded by Patrick Godet, whose relationship with the Vincent marque stretches back four decades. What began as a passion for restoring and maintaining both Vincents and Egli Vincents, evolved into something considerably more ambitious: the creation of entirely new motorcycles built around a thoroughly developed, modern interpretation of the Vincent engine.

As Patrick puts it on the GODET website: "We have been able to incorporate new technologies and adapt them to traditional craftsmanship. Our bikes don't just look vintage — they are built with respect for the rules, using higher performance and more efficient materials."

 That philosophy runs through everything GODET does, and the workshop — 600 square metres, with over 2,500 parts in stock, a CNC lathe, conventional lathe, two milling machines, a metrology room and a dedicated metalworking area — is the physical expression of it. Here, a small, close-knit team of specialists handles everything from engine builds to chassis fabrication, with the depth of knowledge found in few workshops.

GODET currently offers four machines, each one a genuine hand-built proposition. The GODET Café Racer is the flagship road model. At its heart is the 1,330cc Vincent/GODET V-twin: a 50-degree air-cooled unit producing 100hp at 6,000rpm, fed by a 36mm Mikuni carburettor and driving through a dry multiplate clutch and five-speed gearbox. 

It sits in an Egli-type frame built from Reynolds 531-equivalent steel tubing, with a 35mm Ceriani GP replica fork up front and Maxton rear shocks. The brakes are magnesium drum units — a Fontana 230 four-leading-shoe at the front, a 180 two-leading-shoe at the rear — and the whole machine weighs in at 180kg. It is, in every meaningful sense, a motorcycle from another era, built to standards that most contemporary machines can only approximate.

The GODET Sport GT shares the same powertrain and chassis as the Café Racer, but was conceived with a different intention: to bring the riding comfort associated with the original Vincent together with the performance of the Egli frame. The result is a machine that covers ground in a rather more relaxed fashion, without compromising on the mechanical integrity that defines every GODET build.

For those whose interests lie in competition, GODET offers two race-bred machines. The 500 Grey Flash, which pairs GODET's own 500cc single (producing 60hp at 8,000rpm) with the chassis of the original Vincent Grey Flash, in stainless steel, with Vincent Girdraulic front suspension and Borrani wire wheels. 

The GODET Racer 500, meanwhile, is the full racing proposition. Built around the same 500cc single in an Egli-type tubular stainless frame, it weighs just 115kg and has established itself, from its very first seasons on track, as one of the fastest classic 500GP machines available.

GODET sources components direct from Venhill for their builds and models; a natural choice for a workshop that will not compromise on quality at any point in the process. That connection takes on particular significance with one of the team's most recent developments: a new hydraulic drum brake kit, introduced in 2025, designed to enhance braking power and rider feel on machines fitted with GODET's magnesium drum brake.

The kit combines a bespoke GODET Motorcycles hydraulic slave cylinder with a Brembo PS16 master cylinder — and a Venhill braided stainless steel brake line completing the system. It's a detail that reflects a broader truth about the way GODET works: every element of the machine is considered on its own merits, and the best available solution is specified accordingly, regardless of where it comes from.

Readers of our recent deBolex profile may also notice a familiar connection here. When Calum Pryce-Tidd and his team set out to reimagine the Vincent Black Shadow, it was GODET Motorcycles who developed the engine for the project; incorporating electric start and a custom breathing system into a unit that could underpin deBolex's own interpretation of that iconic machine. Two workshops, separated by the Channel, united by the same standard of work.

You can find out more about GODET Motorcycles and their current range at: https://www.GODET-motorcycles.fr/en/