January 2012 Archives

Via: The Scooterist.

Wow, this scooter on ebay has got to be one of the absolute worst bodge jobs that I have ever seen.  It really is a sort of "greatest hits" of all the ways that the supposedly "restored" scooters coming out of Vietnam go wrong.  Let's start with the picture above.  You can tell just by the look of it that something is very wrong.  The side cowl just looks totally off kilter.  It looks like they took a VBB body, and then hacked off the back of it to make it look like an earlier 50's Vespa.  They must have modified the cowl to fit, but it just makes it look like it was put on at the wrong angle.  How many rusty/beat-down Vespa frames went into the building of this particular scooter?  The world may never know... 

Of course, the handlebars are all wrong, and likely home-made, as is the "fender light".  The chrome just looks garish.  A chrome expansion chamber (also likely home-made and probably doing nothing for performance)... why not? 

Here you see the abomination at the front end. The legshields look far too upright.  That is clearly a P-series fork, and it looks horrible. Not only that, but you have to question how they modified the fork to fit in this frame. Some cutting and welding was certainly required. Would you trust your life to that?

This thing is just horrible.  They even didn't bother to take new pictures for the ebay listing.  This is clearly shot in the old country, and they were too lazy to take off the Vietnam license plate.  The ebay listing says Miami Florida, but the photos say Ho Chi Minh City.

The January Auctions in Las Vegas are over.  There were a few (probably) bad scooters that made it to the auction block, and brought way more than they should have.  There was a really bad Vietnam restored Vespa, and a Series II Lambretta that looks like it was an A.P.I. Indian-made Lambretta that was "restored" there.  Both buyers are likely to be very dissapointed.  As expected, the TWN and the Salsbury brought big money.  They looked like they were quite nice.  Here are some of the notable results:

• Vietnam "restored" Vespa VBB in horrible pink- somebody got snookered!: $3800
• Lambretta LI125 Series III, refreshed in good shape, someone got a good deal: $2000
• Cushman 52A Pacemaker, restored: $2100
• Lambretta LI150 Series II, looks to be from India: $3400
• Cushman Series 60, older restoration: $3900
• Cushman Super Eagle, restored: $3900
• Misubishi Pigeon/Wards Riverside Nassau, unrestored excellent: $4250
• Harley Davidson Topper, restored: $4250
• Mustang Thoroughbred, restored: $5750
• Mustang Thoroughbred, restored: $7250
• TWN Tessy, restored: $7500
• Salsbury 85, restored: $11,750

Friend of the site, Horacio, from Argentina, sent us this photo of his Siambretta LD. It sure looks nice! Siambrettas were Lambrettas built under license in Argentina. They built LD's, Series II's, and their own version of a TV175 Series III that looks very different from the standard Italian TV. The Siambrettas were never sold in the US, so I've never seen one in person.

Feel free to send us your photo, we love seeing scooters!

"Since no country has control over the place it is full of smugglers, illegal money changers, blown up vehicles, land mines, cars left here from various insurance scams and piles of trash. ATTENTION! There are no police or military here. There's no law. However, there are plenty of mines. Always stick to the dirt track."

Three Norwegians are driving Vespas from Morocco to Guinea Bissau as part of a sort of time trial race. Yes, they are crazy. We here at Scooterlounge wish them well, and also wish we were 1/100th as brave. You can follow their exploits on their blog here.

We here at Scooterlounge don't just blog, we also run a scooter website... Life has been pretty busy for the last year or so, and we have not had a lot of time to push updates or additions to the main site. All our efforts have been mainly going to keeping the blog going.

Well, that is changing. We're working on a bunch of new content for the site. Some of it based upon things we've done for the blog, and others are just nice fresh pages.

The first thing we have for your is Dano's amazingly detailed story of how he restored his Lambretta SX200 (pictured above, after restoration). This is the good stuff. You want to read it, I know you do. Head on over to the main site and check it out!

What a great photo! Dean Martin, in what looks like the height of his Rat Pack, swingin' 60's powers. I'm not sure who the starlet on the Lambretta Cento is... but you can bet that she had some fun with Dean later that evening.

The auctions are starting this weekend. This Lambretta Li 125 is up for auction at the Mid-America motorcycle auction in Las Vegas.  It seems like a reasonable scoot.  I can't asy for sure, but I think I've seen this one for sale before... maybe on ebay?

More photos of this toy below the jump.

This Mitsubishi Pigeon is up for auction at the Mid-America motorcycle auction in Las Vegas.  You don't see many of these for sale in any condition.  This one is advertised as being in original condition.  It looks great.  The Pigeon is certainly an odd-ball scooter, and there are quite a few other brands that are higher on my "want" list... most notably a Fuji Rabbit.  However, if you are in the market for one of these scooters, this looks like one you should have a look at..

For a little background, here is a small article I did on the Wards Nassau/Mitsubishi Pigeon.

Well, I finally got some time to dig in to that tasty Lambretta GP150 that I featured last month.  I had tried to kick it over, but the clutch was clearly stuck.  Time to crack the cases and put in some new clutch plates!

More Lambretta clutch goodness below the jump

This Lambretta Li Series II is up for auction at the Mid-America motorcycle auction in Las Vegas.

This scooter looks very much like an Indian "restoration". These Series II scooters were made and sold in India for a while before SIL bought the presses for the GP models. Whoever buys this scooter is likely to be very disappointed.

The Salsbury is my favorite scooter. I've never had the pleasure of owning one, but I did come close once... they just don't come up for sale often. This one has been restored, and looks great. If I had the cash, I'd be bidding on this scoot for sure!

The Salsbury is up for auction at the Mid-America motorcycle auction in Las Vegas.

The big Las Vegas motorcycle auctions are coming up. I don't have the kind of cash to be a player there, but I can drool over the bikes via the magic of the interwebz. As usual, there are a smattering of scooters mixed in amongst the Vincents, Triumphs, and BMW's. Over the next few weeks, I'll highlight the ones that I find.

This TWN Tessy is up for auction at the Mid-America motorcycle auction in Las Vegas.

Compare it with this TWN that sold for $3300 at auction last year.

I can't say that I find the Tessy a very interesting scooter myself... it is pretty strange looking, and quite rare here in the US. Will this restored one bring as much as the tatty looking one from last year?