July 2010 Archives

We here in the US are an industrious folk.  Give us a lot of spare time, and a lot of spare beer, and we will take a beautiful piece of engineering, and hack it into an unspeakable horror.  I pointed out this farm-engineered mini-bike made from the unholy union of a Lambretta and a hacksaw a few weeks ago.  Now, I see on my local Craigslist that someone else had the same bright idea to somehow stuff a Lambretta motor into a Honda trail motorcycle.  Huh?  Why?

Take a close look at the photos.  I'm not really sure what is going on there.  Clearly, they attached a pulley on the end of the crank where the flywheel fan is supposed to go.  However, note that a whole portion of the normal Lambretta motor case is missing.  They just cut the motor on the kickstart side just behind the crank.  Wow.  That is just something I would have never thought to do, even at my drunkest. 

Kudos to you crazy drunk guy, kudos to you...

Full text of the seller's description of this motor below the jump

She's probably not wearing the most effective clothing for crash protection... but she sure does look good!  What's not to like - no helmet, Sicilian coast, fun scooter, leering middle-aged man...  The headband is very 80's, but otherwise, the photo is timeless.

You can purchase this photo here.

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This 57 Allstate is available for sale right now in Massachusetts through ebay.  This scooter looks to be a perfect candidate for restoration.  It looks really straight, and there is no rust evident in the photos.  It looks like the classic story of a scooter that was painted with housepaint at some point, which did a nice rust-prevention job.  The original green paint is evident under the scratches and on the flywheel cover.  All the parts look like they are there, including the very hard to find aluminum floor strips.  This would be a straightforward restoration... or just get it running well and drive it as-is (which is probably what I would do).  This is an interesting and fun ride for not much money.  Just don't expect to go very far or very fast on it!

Piaggio decided a few years ago to drop the venerable Vespa PX from production.  This didn't have much of an effect on us here in the US, since the one and only year that we could get a PX was 2005.  They must not have sold very many of them, because there was no attempt to sell them here again.  The market in Europe must have been fairly small as well, and that, coupled with impending strict emissions laws, meant that Piaggio shelved the PX which had been in continuous production in one form or another since 1977.  It had a good run, from '77 to '07.

Of course, even though Piaggio wasn't making the PX, that didn't mean that it was not still being made.  Production was still going on in India by LML.  Those scooters are being sold in the US as the "Stella" by Genuine Scooter.  In order to meet strict emissions laws in Europe (and California), LML has recently designed a four stroke motor to fit in the old Vespa chassis.

The LML is currently sold in Europe, and it appears that even though it is a niche market, Piaggio is taking notice.  I find it hard to believe, but this article notes that LML has sold about 2,500 Vespa clones in Italy - versus Piaggio selling 5000 of the new automatic LX and GTS models.  With that kind of market share, Piaggio seems poised to re-introduce the PX into production.  The article seems to say that they will build the standard two stroke motor (presumably only in 125cc trim), and also offer a four stroke version.  I hope they do!

This is a pretty rare promotional 45 rpm record which was produced by Piaggio to get the kids to buy their mopeds.  Yes, there was a time when kids liked to play singles on their record players!  I'd have to guess that this was only given out in Italy, and I can not comment on the quality (or lack thereof) of the music.  The record sleeve is nice though!  I know this is not technically a scooter, but we here at Scooterlounge like all two-wheeled vehicles, including mopeds.  Plus, there is a Vespa 50 in the background, so there's even something for the haters...

Here is something you don't see for sale every day in the US... a restorable sidecar body.  I'm not sure who manufactured this one, but it looks pretty similar to the ones that Sears sold.  The tub on this car looks pretty good, and I'm sure it would be pretty easy to clean this one up.  The mounting bracket on it looks a bit strange, I have no idea what this was mounted to.  However, it looks like it could be very easy to fabricate a different bracket to fit this hack up to either a Vespa or Lambretta.  Neat!

This is a great photo for a lot of reasons which I probably don't have to point out to you... however, there is one detail that you probably missed.  Check out the side of the scooter, did you notice that pedal sticking out there?  I bet you didn't... probably because your eyes were looking elsewhere.  This just happens to be one of the rare French market Vespa 50's which had a pedal-start mechanism.  I guess French laws made them cheaper or easier to get a license or something if they were classified as a moped.  They look strange, and I'll see if I can dig up a photo of what the mechanism looks like.

Oh man, I totally want to find that road.  In a world where there is a town named "Jazzville", where sexy ladies ride their Lambrettas with low-cut shirts, where the road is filled with scooters, where people wave to you as you ride by... yeah, where is it?  I want to go now!

This scooter is up for sale right now on Ebay.  This is exactly how you want to find them.  All original paint, just a little surface rust here and there, running, and complete.  This scooter looks really straight with no major dents or even dings.  The floorboards even look ok.  This will make a great ride for someone.  If you are near Ohio, I suggest you make a play for it.  The bidding is starting at $2500, which is just a bit on the high side for a 125, so I'll be curious to see if it sells.  If not, it would be worth emailing or calling the seller to make an offer on it. 

This is a cool art installation based upon a Vespa 50, which by the looks of it, has been pretty heavily tuned for speed.  Here are the notes for the project:

»Spleen« is a freeze-frame explosion, an autopsy on motor and chassis that encapsulates the utopian fantasy of the overhauled scooter, driving off into the sunset.

You can see more art by this group of artists here.  Hat tip to Newcaferacersociety blog for finding this.

This scooter is for sale right now on Ebay.  This looks like the kind of scooter that used to be fairly commonplace, but is increasingly hard to find.  It has fairly nice original paint and does not appear to have been modified or messed with.  I really like this blue color that these came in. 

This is not the kind of scooter which will rip down the street, but it will certainly turn heads at the local corner coffee shop.  I used to have a scooter exactly like this one, and I regret selling it.  I'd keep this one totally stock, and lose the sticker on the legsheild.  It is a nice scooter, and someone on the East Coast will be happy with this one...