There is a crazy Italian couple who are riding their 70's Vespa 50 Special across the US. I don't read Italian, but I can look at the photos. So can you!
June 2010 Archives
A friend of the site sent this album cover in. I've seen quite a few jazz records with scooters on the cover, but this is one I have not seen before. Nice GS! I hope he isn't going to ride too far with that bone strapped to his hip, it sure would dent a nice horn...
If there ever was a band name which was due for a revival, it is the Gaylords. I can totally see a techno style club band with that name. They'd have to wear skin tight shiny silver suits, and have a scary looking fat dude on the turntables. I'm just sayin'...
This photo of a custom made mini-bike, which is currently for sale on Ebay, pretty much speaks for itself. This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands, too much beer in your fridge, and a very active imagination...
Here is an interesting photo which turned up on Ebay last week. It shows an ACMA Vespa in action, as it were. The reverse of the photo indicates that the photo was taken in the south of France in 1953. That would be a very early year for the ACMA. Here, the only obvious indication that it is a French-made Vespa is the headlight. The Italian Vespas would have had the headlight on the front fender at this time.
Take a look at an earlier blog post here with close up photos of an early ACMA
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May people wonder how much our vintage scooters cost when they were new. I have a lot of old price sheets, but have not had the time to scan them all. Here we have a nice photo of a display stand which had the prices all listed.
The surprising thing here is that the scooters were actually more or less comparable to today's prices. I'm guessing that these prices were listed around 1963 based upon the models offered, but I don't have the exact date. Using 1963, that GS, in today's dollars would be about $3600. Not too shabby, considering a brand new 2010 Vespa GTS will set you back about twice that, with an MSRP of $6200.
Update 06/07/10: We just got a comment from Peter S., who actually posted this picture originally. He provides some interesting background and information on these amazing Lambretta race scooters:
This is good as it displays what Innocenti was up to in 1951!! This is a photo of the 4 bitubo racers made by Innocenti, that were used in the local German series in early 1951 and were raced by the NSU factory who made Lambrettas under license from 1951. These machines had two rearward facing exhausts. It had another exhaust exiting on the other side. The carbie faced forwards into the airstream. These were fitted with 12 inch wheels. Romolo Ferri was sent to Germany to race these and in their first appearance at Drieckensrennen, Otto Daiker won the 125cc race. He was also entered into the Hockenhiem race for the World GP series, but failed to start.
Original Post 12/8/09: From Racing Retro, who seems to dig up an unending trove of sweet vintage photos, comes this great of four mid-50's Lambretta racers. There was a time in Italy where scooters really battled it out for racing wins, and both Piaggio and Innocenti built works racers. Of course, Piaggio had a much more serious factory sponsorship, but Innocenti did build some quite serious racing machines which were sold to private racers. I'm not really sure what's going on in this picture, but these look like they are factory fresh scooters.
You can see the amazing custom bodywork quite well in the photo. The gas tanks and all of these body panels were hand beaten. Such craftsmanship! You can also see the special large wheels (probably 10") and the custom wheel rims. The huge final drive/shaft drive housing is also noticeable. The massive megaphone exhaust is very interesting. It comes out over the top of the shaft drive and exits on the kickstart side. I would be very curious to see the other side of the motor to see how it clears the carburetor.
Sportique Scooters in Colorado is selling this beautiful Lambretta Li 150 Series II on Ebay right now. Here is how they describe it:
It's completely original, 100% unmolested. We purchased it from it's second owner, an antique dealer who found it in the basement of a house in the Bay area. It still has it's original dealer sticker on the legshield. The original clear-coat still sparkles. This scooter is as close to flawless as any 50 year-old scooter we have ever seen. Only the tires have been replaced.
Looking at the photos, it sure does appear to be about as good an unrestored scooter as you are likely to find. Certainly, considering it is 50 years old at this point, there just are not that many in this kind of original condition around any more.
It is unfortunate that Ebay pushes these very small photos into their listings. This is a really nice scooter, and if I were bidding the big bucks it would take to get it, I'd want some big photos to reassure me. In any case, you can see that the paint looks great. This is not my favorite color for these scooters, but heck, beggers can't be choosers. No dings, no dents, only a few minor scratches... I sure wish I could buy it.
There is the money shot. You can see the paint shining on all of the curves of the legshield. I've seen quite a few original paint Series II Lambrettas, and none of them had this kind of shine. That gray paint just gets dull with any sun exposure. This scooter is great. Also note the "Al Fergoda" dealer sticker on the left, that is a symbol of originality. I love this scooter!
Alas, I can't buy it... but YOU can! I'm curious to see how much is sells for, if it sells. With the Euro tanking, there might be less interest from abroad. And with the economy the way it is here in the US, I wonder if any serious scooter collectors here will step up to the plate. This scooter is worth every penny of (my guestimate of the asking price of) $6,000... and then some. It is possible to restore a scooter to this level, but very very difficult to find one in original condition this nice.
I did a bit of work in the garage this weekend, all of which will end up on the blog in the coming week. The first scooter I worked on was a '59 Vespa 150. The '58-59 Vespa 150's were transition scooters. These were the first of the rotary valve models. In fact, the very early VBA's used a "hybrid" piston ported motor in the new narrower frame. These didn't last very long, and I've only seen a few of them over the years.
On thing about living in Berkeley California is that there are a lot of scooters around, and no real shops in town. There are two great shops in San Francisco, but many people just can't or don't want to make the trek over the Bay Bridge with their scooter for service. I end up working on quite a few scooters owned by people in my neighborhood. This VBA was one such scoot.
It is an interesing scooter from the perspective of its status as a short time transition model. This motor is one of the first rotary valve versions. It has some interesting features which are only visible when you open up the carb airbox. I took a few photos to document it.
This scooter had several problems which together manifested themselves in hard starting and non-reliable running. The owner had taken the scooter to the a new Vespa dealer, who did some work on it. By work, I mean they took $500 of the owner's money and came nowhere near fixing the problem. Warning to all, be cautious before taking your vintage scooter to a new Vespa shop!
After a bit of checking, I think I found the sources of the problem. First, upon checking the spark with my trusty spark check tool, it appeared to be weak and somewhat intermittent. Looking at the ignition coil, it looked like it was the original HT coil fitted to the scooter at the factory 50 years ago. I sourced a new coil, and will post about the replacement when it arrives.
The other problem that I noticed was that the scooter didn't appear to be getting fuel from the carb. I checked the fuel supply to the carb from the gas tank, and that was working ok. So, it appeared that a carb clean/rebuild was in order.
I took the carb off the scooter. This carb is somewhat interesting in that it is the first series of these Del'Orto SI carbs which were used on all the later Vespas. These first SI's are different from the later ones in a couple of significant ways. The first, and most obvious is that they do not have a enrichener choke circuit. As you can see from the photos below, these early scooters used an air choke, rather than a fuel enrichener choke. I guess this system didn't work too well, because they changed to the fuel enrichener choke on the motors just after this one.
On the inside of the carb, there were also some differences. The main one is that the fuel filter bowl above the float is significantly smaller than on the later carbs. As an aside, when I took this particular carb apart, I found that the needle was toast, and the float was completely stuck. So fixing that should help the running.
Given that this carb looked a bit worn, and the owner is not a home hobbyist mechanic, I would normally simply replace the float or the entire carb to ensure reliable running. However, since this scooter is so early, and has the unique carb setup, I could not do that. After thoroughly cleaning the carb, I just replaced the needle and float, and put in some new gaskets.
Above, you see a close up of the carb and airbox interior. Very sparse and unfussy in here compared to the later scooters. Note the carb stamp "SI 20/17". Also note that the fuel line hole on the airbox is small, with no rubber grommet as on the later airboxes.
Here is a detail shot on the choke mechanism. The choke cable attaches to that little arm on the right side of the picture. The arm actuates a small flap, which you can see at the top of the picture. That flap closes off the air flow to the carb, thus richening the mixture. I'm not sure how well this system works. I guess I'll find out once I get the scooter all back together!
