June 2011 Archives

This is one of those rare Ebay moments, when the quickest draw gets a super deal. Here we have some longtime owner who didn't know what he had, and put, what could be described as a "barn find" Lambretta SX200 up on Ebay. Now normally, if the seller knew anything about how Ebay worked, he would have just run a normal auction. However, for some reason, he put a Buy-it-now of $1500 for this scooter. What a deal! What strikes me as totally insane is that you can see that there were a total of five bids on it. So that means that four people saw the ad, and did not hit the $1500 buy it now, but bid below that. I think we can safely classify those people as dumbasses. I feel sorry for the seller, who if he would have run a normal auction would likely have gotten around $4000 for this scooter.

I've been riding my trusty PX200 daily for the past year. I've had it for around 8 years, but really only started commuting on it when I moved, and added some fairly significant highway driving to my commute. In any case, it has been a good scooter, as one expects from a late model P-series. However, in the last month, I was smelling gas frequently when I stopped. At first, I thought I had a leak at the petcock under the tank. I looked under there, and I found no leak. Then I thought it was the carb. So I replaced the carb float bowl and needle, but I still smelled gas. At some point, the leak got so bad, that I could physically see fuel coming out of the bottom of the scooter... ok, time to really hunt it down!

After pulling the tank again, and finding no fuel, I felt behind the motor for the fuel line. It was wet. So I figured that I should pull the entire fuel line to see if I could determine the cause of the leak.  When I pulled the fuel line out, I could see that it had gotten hard, and had actually cracked in several spots.  The cracks must have been getting worse slowly, and eventually gotten bad enough to leak.  Time to replace the fuel line!

I had the idea to write this Guide awhile back when it came to mind that potential Lambretta Club USA 2011 Lambretta Jamboree rallygoers ought to know about the possibility of rain during the rally. Yeah, I know, rain in mid-July. That's Portland for ya. Then I thought about riding over light-rail tracks in the rain, which can be hazardous. Then I thought about some of the complications we've had to deal with around planning for serving alcohol at the Saturday night party.

And there was more. After awhile I had a list of stuff I felt people might want to know about when making plans to come to Portland for the 2011 Lammy Jammy. And thus the concept for th' Capn's Guide To Rallying In Portland was born. I hope you find it useful.

Innocenti stopped producing scooters in 1971, but they did not go out of business. Rather, they focused on building other products. Innocenti had been building cars, alongside the scooters, for a long time. They had aquired the license to build Austin sedans in Italy from BMC in 1960. Shortly thereafter, they started building the car you see pictured above... the Innocenti Spider. This car was based on the Austin-Healy Sprite, which shared components with MG's Midget sportscar. Eventually, Innocenti moved on to make their own version of the Austin Mini, which was quite popular in Italy. In fact, it appears that their sales volume in Italy in the late 60's was second only to Fiat. By the time Innocenti stopped making the Lambretta, it seems as though they decided to halt all vehicle production, and focus on their other manufacturing lines. Their whole car production line was bought outright by British Leyland (the manufacturer of most British cars at that time) in 1972.

Turning back to the Innocenti Spider - While the motor and undercarriage were the same as the Austin-Healey, Innocenti changed the body design. They contracted with Carrozzeria Ghia for the new body, with quite spectacular results. The Austin-Healey is a good looking car (especially the early "bug eye" version), but there is little doubt that the Innocenti Spider is simply beautiful.

I have seen this particular car in person at the last Alameda Italian Day show, and I can tell you it is as nice in person as it looks in the photos. You have to be very confident of your bodywork to paint a car black, and the panels on this car are great. If you'd like this car, it is for sale right now at the well-known collector car dealer Fantasy Junction. It is not what I'd call cheap, but at $25,000 USD, it is not totally out of reach either. I must say, it would look good in my garage next to the SX200!