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This photo must show the Innocenti production line just as it was switching over to the GP scooters. I'm guessing that this lot of scooters was destined for the UK market. You can tell these are the last of the SX150 and SX200 because they have the "square" horncasting badge. You can also see that the white SX150 in the middle of the photo does not have handles on the cowl. If you look at the far right, you'll see the tell-tale stripe of a GP sidepanel poking through between the legshield of the red and white SX. Is it me, or does it look like all these scooters had silver wheels and brake drums? That would make sense, as the GP's had those painted silver. Also, note that the horn cover is polished silver and not painted on these scooters. Kind of flashy!
Photograph shows some of German lads in Miltonberg, Germany - taken in fall 1951 or spring of 1952 . Written on back is: "German boys on motorcycles. I took the same picture for them with one of their camera's. Miltonberg, Germany. I know the date from other images of his from this trip- err tour..."
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.
Happy Holidays everyone! I'll be on vacation for the next few days, so this will be the last post for about a week. I hope Santa brings you the scooter you've been hoping for. I know you've been (mostly) good this year...
It looks like a Lambretta Model A in the foreground, and a Model C in the background... plus a Fiat 500 for good measure. Don't they all look stylish?
Thanks to friend of the site, Nick G., for sending this photo our way.
Your San Francisco welcoming committee says: "Jump on the back!".
Continue reading Economy Car?.
Lambretta LD ad from 1955
Herman overland trip to India. This shot was taken near the Pakistan border in Oct 59.
(October 1958) "A three-wheel convertible passenger vehicle, which deivers over 75 miles per gallon of gas, the Lambretta "Surrey" has just been introduced into the country by the Innocenti Corp., 45 Columbus Ave., New York City, distributor of the Itailan-made Lambretta motor scooters and commercial utility vehicles. Built upon the same rugged chassis that supports the popular three-wheel Lambretta commercial vehicles and powered by the same 150cc two-cycle engine, the new Lambretta "Surrey" is equipped with a beutifully designed body built by Ghia, the famous Itlian custum automobile body manufacturer. Although intended primarily for use at resorts, airports, amusement centers and other places where pleasnt short-haul transportation is required, the new Lambretta "Surreys" have already been adopted by several golf clubs as golf carts."
1950's Hong Kong movie star Mai Ling with her scooter. I have no idea what kind of scooter this is. Any guesses?
Via Softfilm
11/02/11 Update: My good friend Andrew took one look at this magazine cover, and his eye was drawn not to the Doris Day look-alike... oh no, it was to the BUS in the background! Hah! He thinks the bus may have been made by Alfa Romeo. You see, Andrew is an Alfa Romeo guru, and helped me immesurably in buying my own Alfa. He forwarded on two old Alfa Romeo bus brochures. All of you fans of fast cars and stylish public transportation - rejoice. The brochures are available below the fold...
Continue reading Lambretta Notiziario.
(1971)
Continue reading Faro Basso Soldier.
While the Italians would never pass up the opportunity to put a scantily-clad woman astide one of their scooters in an advertisement... the Japanese had a very different approach - SUMOI!!
From Cycle World Magazine, 1962
This ad was in Cycle Magazine in 1964
Excerpts from Cycle World July 1968
You could buy both and fit them in a one-car garage with room to spare! It is hard to imagine what one of these Vespa 400 cars must have looked like to the average American car buyer in the late 50's. Park this next you your 1959 Cadillac... it would probably fit in the trunk.
It is hard to tell when this photo was taken. I'm guessing it was during the first mod revival in the late 70's. The big tell is in the far left of the picture, the distinctive outline of a white P-series Vespa. That at least dates the photo to post-77. Clothing, hair styles, and helmets look more 70's than 90's.
Via: the Vespa Club Roma.
After yesterday's post about the project TV175, I figured I'd pull out an old photo of one all together! Here we have a Lambretta TV175 with a lot of neat accessories, from a 1958 magazine advertisement for a women's clothing line
Cesare Bartolini racing in the 1969 Moto Giro d'Italia on a factory-sponsored Lambretta SX200 which was race-modified by the Ancilloti firm
Via racinglambrettas
Angie Dickinson was in "Jessica", a pretty well known movie that featured her in Italy riding around on a Vespa. This photo must have been from that era
This is a good example of very poor advertising. Why is the Washington Monument in this advertisement? Is the huge phallic symbol supposed to make up for the small car? This ad was produced during the highwater mark of Freudian analysis, you be the judge.
em>Billed as The Picture of the Week... from p.707 of the 1st April 1954 copy of "Motor Cycling", the text says....
"Today being All Fools Day, against the date in our special diary the entry reads:"Line and Leg Pulling begins..".
So we felt that this picture, sent to us from Neckarsulm ( the city where NSU had their factory) and depicting what the NSU people call their "Hunter" model scooter, had a strong claim to be The Picture of the Week. ....."
font style="FONT-SIZE: 0.8em">via: The Velobanjogent, New Cafe Racer
May 15th, 1951, Montlhery, France -- Lambretta reaches speeds in excess of 200 km/h on the Montlhery racetrack.
Before there was an internet, there was mail order. Back in the day, you could buy just about anything if you had the right mail order catalog. Many companies specialized in certain items, but the two biggies - Sears and Montgomery Ward - sold just about everything. As we know, Sears sold Vespa scooters under the Allstate name. But not as many people are aware that Montgomery Ward also sold scooters. Wards scooters were called "Riverside". Wards didn't sell very many scooters compared to Sears, but they sometimes turn up. Just as Sears sold many different makes of motorcycles and scooters, so did Montgomery Wards. Most of the ones that you see are the Italian Lambretta Li125 Series III models, but they also sold Japanese scooters. The Japanese scooter that they sold was made by Mitsubishi. In the US, their distributor, Rockford scooters, sold them under the Rockford brand name. The Mitsubishi scooter was called the "Silver Pigeon" when sold under its own name, but called a Riverside when sold by Wards. There were several models of Pigeon sold by Wards that had various levels of trim and power. I believe that this is a C-80 model Pigeon, one of the better models.
The Pigeons are pretty nice scooters. The C-80's had overhead valve four stroke motors with automatic CVT style transmissions. Almost 5 hp on these bad-boys meant they were good for around 45 mph of blistering speed. Honestly, pretty comparable with the Vespa 125 of the day. Of course, unlike the Vespa/Allstate, there were not many of these sold, and virtually no parts support. As a result, the Pigeon is a very rare scooter in the US. I don't think I've ever seen one in person.
Click below the jump for some more pictures from the manual
Continue reading Wards Riverside Nassau.
I have no idea who took this photo, or when... but the beauty of it is that the photo could have been taken any time from the mid-60's until now.
As the Italians have shown with virtually all of their scooter advertisements, sex sells scooters (or anything else, for that matter). Here we have a feeble 50's mid-western attempt to pose a leggy blond on a scoot for a promo. Clearly, they don't get the concept. It is Wisconsin... I happen to know a large-ish lake nearby. They surely could have put the scoot near it, and had her in a swimsuit. I guess there's a reason why the Vespa buried the Cushman in sales!
Via: Wisconsinhistory
This is a photo of Dr. Eberhardt Sarfert, who ran BMW Motorcycles from 1979-89 on his Glas Goggo scooter, circa 1955. The Goggo was one of the best scooters of the era. It was solidly built and had a lot of of very advanced features for its time. Just look at it. This looks as crazy space-age today as it did back then. Admit it, it would stop you in your tracks if you saw one driving down the street. A truly amazing scooter. I love them.
Of course, they were very expensive, and not a lot of them were sold compared to the Italian scooters. They are very difficult to find today, especially outside of Germany.
Via BMW Owners News, Feb 2007
I love this photo. It shows a couple of late 40's Cushmans in all their Kodachrome glory. You just don't get over-saturated reds like this in digital photography! These guys are having serious fun.
Via: Smokstak
Continue reading From the Archives: Second Car.
An actual 1960's UK anti-smoking campaign poster. I'm not quite sure how the bowling ball fits in to that whole picture... otherwise, that dude has it going on!
This photo hung in the Lambretta dealership in Victorville, California around 1959.
Another great photo from the past. This one is of what appears to be a Vespa club event in the early 50's. I'm not really sure what is going on here, but it is notable that all of the riders are women. At first I thought it was part of a parade of some kind, but then noting the number on the scooter's legshields leads me to think that this is part of some competition. I don't have any idea, but the whole scene just looks super cool. Note the big American cars and the jeep parked on the left side of the picture.
There is so much that is awesome about this photo, I can't even put it into words. Without doubt, one of my favorite vintage scooter photos of all time.
Lots of good things going on in the photo...
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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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.
There is a guy selling a bunch of old photo negatives on ebay from what appears to be an old advertising sign company. Some of them have some good scooter photos. Here we have a Vespa Ape which was converted into a hot dog cart. Very interesting! Wouldn't it be cool to have this one now? I mean, seriously, you'd be the hit of every scooter rally in the country!
Also note, there is a small silk banner in the background for the seller. It has, what appears to be a Vespa on it, with the slogan "Get Around Better". I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, because that was Lambretta's slogan in the UK.
This is a Lambretta advertising postcard from back in the day. Oh you Italians, trying to think of any way you can get a sexy lady in the photo... By the way, where is he looking?!
This scooter comes with leering men as standard equipment!
See more regarding the wonderful Terrot scooters and motorcycles here (in French).
Back in the 50's a small car company with a funny name was trying to figure out how to market itself in the US market, which was dominated by huge car companies making huge cars. They turned to Madison Avenue, and got what is rightfully considered the best and most iconic ad campaigns ever. They had crisp photos with white backgrounds and snappy and funny copy. The ads fit the cars perfectly.
Well, for those ad companies which were not nearly as creative, imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. If you had a European scooter company come to your door asking to create a marketing campaign, why not just pitch an ad which "feels just like the Volkswagen ads!" And that is just what Piaggio got. Above is a good example the genre. This is probably the best Vespa ad from the period, funny, but making the point that the best quality of the Vespa is that it isn't trying to be a Harley.
This is a neat photo of a 50's Allstate Vespa. It appears to be taken on a military base, probably Air Force. I love the 50's look that the mom has, and the kid looks straight out of Leave it to Beaver. Also, I just can't imagine any scene like this happening today's hyper-safety conscious society. A mom riding her kid on the back of her scooter - no shirt, no helmet, shorts... what could possibly go wrong? Oh the 50's were a golden era of foolishness.
As we noted last week, there have been several Vespa Apes for sale recently in the US. Here's an ad for a 60's version. They do have a certain visual appeal. Strange, but appealing. One wonders why they didn't go the full monty and throw the fourth wheel in there to add stability.
Via Filminas.
I'm not sure that there was ever a time when anyone got overly excited about socks... however, if it did happen, you can bet it was during the 50's. Let's face it, even I could probably get excited about some "clean white socks" if I had a pipe in my mouth, a brand new Lambretta, and a cute lady in formal wear and bouffant hair on the back!
This hearkens from a time when Innocenti actually had some competent people running their US operations. In the late 50's, Lambrettas sold well in the US, and they had creative Americans running their operations. One of the things they did was get Lambrettas into the hands of lots of Madison Avenue advertising firms for use in photo shoots. At some point around 1960, they sacked the Americans, and sent over a bunch of Italians for a plum assignment to live in New York. The Italians promptly ran the US distributor into the ground, and Piaggio ate them for lunch. Sad.
I've been out of town, and out of interwebz access for about a week. I'm back now, and postings will resume this week. For the time being, I'll leave you with this wonder of a scooter.
Yes indeed, the unfortunately named Dayton "Albatross". I have no idea what genius decided to name a scooter after an ungangly bird, but it somehow got through. Still when you look at the horrible styling, I guess the name starts to make more sense. As you may have guessed, this scooter did not sell well. Let's face it, if you had to choose between this monstrosity, and an elegant Italian model... the choice makes itself.
While putting around the interwebz looking for something else, I came across this photo of a US military airman on the Air Force base in Okinawa Japan circa 1956. A lot of scooters moved around the world with US servicemen. It seems that scooters were a convenient way to get around the base, and were also easily portable with personal effects. Many an odd-ball scooter made it back to the US this way. Check out the site to get a glimpse of what like was life was like in the military in the golden years just before Vietnam.
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"Alan Otter, a patrolman with the Royal Automobile Club, on patrol in
London with the scooter sidecar combination he has been given for
coping with congested streets."
This sidehack was created by the RAC (equivalent to the AAA in the US) to assist troubled motorists. I can't imagine that it was much easier to get around on than a small car like a Mini. It sure can't have been fun riding around on it all day, every day, in the London winter...
From: Corbis
This picture is all kinds of awesome. It is certainly from the 60's, just look at her outfit, and the scooter itself looks brand new. The fact that the flyscreen has her name on it tells you it is her scooter, and not one she just posed on. Wow, she must have really gotten the scooter guys ga-ga in '66! Well played Jane, well played...
Found on Flickr.
Quite a few companies threw their hat into the scootering ring in the late 50's. It was a time of booming scooter sales worldwide, and it is pretty amazing to see the sheer variety of scooters which were available at that time. Of course, some scooter designs were better thought through than others. One of the best was the Maicoletta, a sturdy German scooter from a well-known motorcycle manufacturer.
The styling on the Maicoletta was very German, which is to say - big, boxy, and imposing. The mechanical parts were pretty good, with a few weak points such as the starter. Otherwise, the Maicoletta was built to be a solid touring or "executive" scooter. It was not cheap. It also suffered from the same problem that struck virtually every motorcycle manufacturer that decided to make scooters, it was too late. There was a huge boom in scootering in the mid-to-late 50's. By the time many motorcycle companies got their scooters into production, the boom had ended. People had moved on to buying cars.
I'm not exactly sure where this photo came from. I think it is from a catalogue for Vespa accessories made by the company Vigano. From the scooter, I'm guessing this was done around 1967-68. You know, those Italians have had, and will always have, the same plan for selling anything. Here's how I imagine the ad men's conversation goes...
"Hey Carlo, we have to come up with an ad program for this new product!"
"Ok Mario, here's the plan - find us an amazingly beautiful young model, put her in a very skimpy outfit, and pose her in/on/around the new product. If possible, we should have her pose topless"
"Wow Carlo! That's a great idea, let's do it!"
This seems to have been the ad plan for just about every Italian product I can think of from around 1945 until the present day (last link NSFW). Who am I to argue with success?
This silly ad was recently on Ebay. I have no idea what all the hats have to do with the scooter. My guess was that the ad company just had some left over hat clip art pictures from another ad from a hat store, and it was easier to cut and paste them into this one than to come up with some actual art. Who knows. At least the got the fez right. There is nothing that goes better than a scooter and a fez. Just ask these guys, and these guys, and these guys!
Did you know that Moto Guzzi, the famed Italian motorcycle manufacturer made a scooter? Indeed they did, and it was a fairly successful scooter at that. The Guzzi Galletto (or rooster) was a very interesting scooter design. It can be fairly described as a scooter/motorcycle hybrid. It had large 17" wheels and a large 160-200cc motor. In many ways, it was an early version of the large wheeled scooters which are very popular today. In the 50's, when it was first produced, the large wheels would have been very nice, given the sad state of the roads in Italy at that time. The motor was centrally mounted, and it had a single sided rear swingarm, much like today's motorcycles. Though the model pictured above does not have it, most of the Gallettos had a spare tire mounted in front of the legshields (click here for photos with the spare). All in all, it is a neat scooter. I have only rarely seen one for sale here in the US, but I believe they were sold here. Click here (page 1) and here (page 2) for a vintage Galletto road test.
You just have to love this photo which recently turned up on ebay. This is a Vespa 400. Not everyone is aware that Piaggio tried its hand at making a car, but they did. They built the cars in France, so as not to come into direct competition with the Italian car-makers of the day. The Vespa had a 400cc two stroke, two cylinder engine mounted in the rear. It had some innovative features, such as a hand crank two-stroke oil mixer for the fuel, and four wheel independent suspension. With the two stroke motor, I'm sure it compared well with the four stroke Fiat 500... which is probably what doomed the car. The story goes that Fiat threatened to begin production of a scooter if Piaggio didn't cease car manufacturing. And thus the short production run of the Vespa 400 came to an end.
It is surprising to think that some of these little cars actually came to the US, but they were actually sold here. I have seen quite a few of them, considering their low production numbers. I don't know the story behind this photo, but one can imagine that this tiny car stuck out like a sore thumb in the suburbs of the 1960's where huge American behemoths ruled the roads.
This is just an amazing picture. We here at Scooterlounge are big jazz fans. You can't be a jazz fan and not love Louis Armstrong, one of the world's true great artists of all time. Here we have him across from the Coliseum in Rome, astride what is probably either a '49 or '50 Vespa. The main, most obvious, difference between the two years is a small ridge going down either side of the rear frame. The '49 had it, and the '50 didn't. It is hard to tell in this photo. Of note in the background is the Fiat car, which is also from the late '40's. Also note the lack of traffic and background. Neat picture!
Actress Gina Lollobrigida astride a 1952 Douglas Vespa. The Douglas company was an English motorcycle manufacturer which had the foresight to lock up the Vespa franchise for the UK very early. They built up partially assembled kit Vespas in England early on, and then sold Italian built scooters. This model has the strange English market headlight affixed to the legshields.
There is nothing about this picture that isn't awesome. First of all, it is a 90SS! Second, check out the angle on that see-saw. Third, helmet. Fourth, the dude standing by, wow, what a sweater.Found via Culturesponge
My friends, it just doesn't get any cooler than this photo. It may not be Italian, but in my mind, the Salsbury is the coolest scooter ever made.
This is a wonderful picture of an Italian road race in 1967. The photo is of what appears to be a 90 Super Sprint at a check-point, with a motorcycle and Vespa behind it. This one must be a late series 90SS. The give-away is the spare tire mounted crossways across the legshield. The early 90SS's had the famous dummy-tank and a spre mounted straight from the legshields to the front of the seat. This scooter clearly does not have the dummy-tank.
Note the map strapped to the scooter rider's left thigh. The man standing has a stop watch and the guy in the booth appears to be marking down time. Great picture!
Thanks to Racing Retro for finding this photo.
There was a time, perhaps, when this was sexy. I'm not really sure about that... I can say that I don't think this photo would have spurred me on to buy a scooter. Oh the 50's, how quaint and buttoned up you were!
A young fellow riding a Lambretta LC. I'm not sure where this is, but it appears to be France? Click the image to enlarge.
You can find the image here.
