This seems to be the summer of the SX. This is the third one that has come up for sale in the last couple of months. You can find it here on Ebay. This is by far the best one I have seen for sale in awhile. Usually, when they are this nice, they just pass from one scooterist to another - never popping up in the general market. I suppose the very high prices recently are starting to make people think twice about keeping an SX. It sure does make me think twice about riding mine!

Anyhow, this scoot just checks every box for one of these. The seller says it is un-restored and original. Given that, it is as great as you could ever find. The paint is still shiny and in good condition overall. It shows some use, but really, really, nice overall. The seat looks original to me as well. It still even has the tool kit and owner's manual. What more could you ask for? This will sell for really big money. I bet the guys who paid $9k for the restoration project SX's last month are kicking themselves now!

(05/19/15 Update) Holy cow! Sold for $6,700! If that is a bonafide sale, that is utterly astonishing for one in that condition. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Wow, coming on the heels of the SX200, we have another holy grail of the Lambretta world popping up for sale, a Lambretta TV 175 Series I. You can find it here on Ebay. These are among the hardest Lambrettas to find anywhere. I've seen a handful in the US, but I suspect that most of the ones sold here eventually ended up on the scrap heap. Their motors are just different enough from all the others, that I imagine most of them met an untimely demise when something gave out on them. Who would have parts for one of these in the 70's or 80's? Well, this one is rough for sure, but certainly worth saving. Sure, bits are missing. Sure, it will need a complete restoration from top to bottom. But when you're done, you have a very rare and valuable scoot. Maybe if the bidding remains sane, you might even not spend more money to restore it than it is worth. Maybe.

Here is something you don't see every day... an unrestored original Lambretta SX200 on the open market. You can find it here on Ebay. Mostly these are in enthusiast hands at this point. When someone finds one like this, he or she usually covets, keeps, and restores it for their very own. It is not very often that one comes up for sale on ebay like this. I think the last one I can remember was in slightly better condition than this one, and was bid up to $9,000... but that was years ago. I really wonder where this will end up. Yes it is rough. Yes, it needs absolutely everything. However, there are just so few around that I can see this going for a lot of money - it is already at $5,000 and lots of time to go.

There are things I just don't see very often. Here is one of those things on Ebay. The vintage Vespa Club cog badges are things people collect, and are reasonably common in Europe. However, it seems like there just were not too many US Vespa Club members. So finding a US cog badge is pretty fun. However, this one is an "Arizona" badge. That has a lot of interest to me, since I grew up in Arizona. However, when you really think about it, this is a crazy rare badge. How many people lived in Arizona in the 50's? Certainly not many. So there could not have been many of these badges made. I've never seen one before. Wow. So I figured I'd make a play for it. I was thinking that it would go for around $60. Boy was I wrong! Sold for $140!!

I have two different versions of this USA market only accessory brochure. They are both similar. One is like this one, and one is slightly different on the cover. The inside details are the same. It is a very cool accessory list for the various doo-dads you could get for your Lambretta in the early 60's. The cover art is really cool as well. You can get your very own here on Ebay.. The bidding is active on this one, and I'm guessing it will get to around $70 at the end. It is a nice and rare accessory brochure, that's for sure!

This looks like a really good one to me. A GS 160 for sale in Central California, just a mere four hours from me. I'm sorely tempted. You can take a look, here on Ebay.. This just has the right kind of patina in spades. It checks all the right boxes. I'm guessing that it will ultimately sell in the $4-5k range. We'll see...

There are a lot of dubiously restored scooters on the web, but it is nice to see a good honest survivor for a change. You can find this Vespa 150 VBA here on Ebay.. It looks like a typical East Coast scooter, ridden for decades, and then pushed to the back of the garage. I'm not sure if the crash bars are saveable, but I'd probably try. I dig this scooter!

Here is a straight throwback to the 1980's, a Vespa T5!  You can find it for sale on Ebay right now. This thing is dressed up with a ton of 80's accessories.  Sure they look bad, but didn't most 80's fashion?  Underneath, the motor on the T5 is tasty, and the upgrades listed inside make sure this scooter will be quick.  Sure it looks square and garish, but it does perfectly encapsulate the era.  I would totally ride it!

Here is a very rare item, a Lambretta LD clock. Take a look at it here on ebay. These came only on the first series of LD's that had exposed handlebars. Those models had a very small glovebox on the legshields that held a speedometer on one side, and a spot for a clock on the other side. Most people did not opt for the clock option. It has been years since I have seen one of these for sale. I wonder if it will sell!

Check out this poster on Ebay. I have one of these hanging in my office, so it has really acquired the feeling of just a normal object. Still, they are pretty rare. I have a few more of these in my stash, some with the black background, some with a yellow background. If you want one, hit me up!

It is pretty rare to see a Vespa 400 car for sale in this condition, but here one is on Ebay. This one is not too expensive, and likely won't get huge dollars due to its condition. Clearly, it needs a full restoration. However, it appears to be an excellent candidate for restoring. Rust has not destroyed it, and virtually all the parts appear to be intact. Check out the pictures with the listing. It is unbelievable that this car is in this good of condition, given where it was stored. Certainly, if it were closer to me, I would make a play for it myself!

Here is something you don't see too often. This rear rack is a pretty rare rack that was on early Vespas. You can tell by the bottom bracket that it would work only on round-tail models. The top bracket isn't shown, but this looks like a rack I have seen on widebody scoots... it could be that it was also adapted for early rotary valve largeframes as well. Cool, if you ask me!

This was a crazy auction on Ebay. I've never seen one of these before, and it is probably the only one left. An accessory tail light, NOS, still in the box. This would be for a very early Allstate Vespa. The early ones must not have had a brake light, and Sears sold this accessory to retrofit your scooter. Everything you needed came in the kit. Look at the final hammer price of $650... you could almost buy a scooter for that!

I've been keeping an eye on this tail light that is on ebay. These came on the very last Allstates and the one-year only Sears Vespas. They also came on the '67 Vespas. I've mainly seen them on Super Sports, but they may have been on other US market scooters as well. It is undoubtedly a cool looking tail light, and compliments the wide rear of the Super Sport and Rally. I am pretty sure these only came on US market scooters, and were not on anything else. So they are kind of rare.

I thought it would be nice to have a spare one of these, and figured I'd bid up to around $40 for it. It is missing the rare - and usually broken - reflectors on the bottom. It appears to have the guts, and has the lens, which is nice. Still, it isn't perfect, which is why I figured it would sell for a reasonable price. Now I went back to check on it, and WHOAH, it is up to $485?!!! What? People are just nuts.

Scooterlounge is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and thus, we have a deep and abiding interest (some could call it a hatred) of the California DMV.  Paying the registration fees on a fleet of scooters really adds up.  So we are really keen to figure out ways to pay less, or at least, not pay any unnecessary fees to the Man.

We already gave you, gentle reader, the tools with which to fight any back registration fees on your classic vehicle.  If you forgot, go here and read....

Now, we have become privy to a new online resource to find out in advance whether you'll need to pre-arm yourself for battle.  We give you, the online registration calculator.  You can use it to find out if your chosen vehicle owes back registration fees and penalties. 

Thusly forewarned, you can go to the DMV with the correct law provisions at your fingertips with which to dazzle and delight the clerk opposite you in the window.  You'll be in for a fight, that's for sure.  However, with the law on your side, you should come out victorious.

Warning - below is a legal description of the California law as it pertains to vehicle registrations. Ignore if you don't want to dork-out.

I did a bit of research into the issue of paying back registration on a vehicle that hadn't been registered in awhile.  This comes up often with scooters, because people just don't pay the reg, and then sell them.  So when you buy the bike and change the title, you have to pay all the past registrations.  I read on an online forum that it was possible to get out of having to pay the back reg for a vintage vehicle, but that most people (and most DMV employees) didn't know about the law.  So that got me on the road of doing some legal research into the guts of the California vehcle code...

I believe that this is an early photo of the Lambretta assembly line in India. I am not sure if this production was the API factory, or some earlier incarnation of the licensing arrangement with Innocenti.

[update January 1, 2014] I got an email from Rudy P. who was the lucky guy who ended up with this scooter (though it went through others before he got it). He's now in the process of a nut-and-bolt restoration on it. It is now in bits awaiting paint. I can't wait to see the finished product. It looked to be a nice straight scooter, so the restoration should be pretty straightforward.

[original post June 16, 2011] 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.

Cool video of Lambrettas at the race track. I guess they had to race, rain or shine. Clearly, a lot of wrecks due to the slick conditions. It is amazing this footage survived!

In 1965, a young Bristol UK woman was part of a team formed to beat the world scooter speed record. Marlene Parker, a taxi driver in the city, had been selected from 67 female applicants from across the country to ride a Lambretta scooter in Monza in Italy and break the world record of 110 miles an hour.

The team behind the attempt, which was sponsored by Lambretta and Filtrate Oils, is now reuniting. The only missing member is Marlene - but no one knows where she is.

"Eventually the machine was sold and the team lost touch with Marlene. Unknown to the designers and engineers the machine wasn't scrapped, and has recently been discovered in the hands of a large German scooter company (SIP, perhaps?) that is intending to completely rebuild it and return it to its former glory of 40 years ago.  "They are also trying to bring together all those of the British team who attempted the world record at that time."

I've dealt with countless 70's US Market Vespas, and they all had the crazy battery system that Piaggio came up with to comply with US regulations. Needless to say, their solution was half-assed, and basically didn't work well. Mostly, I just removed the battery from the scooter, and re-wired it to run AC. It is actually pretty easy to do, especially so with the trouble-prone 1974 versions. Here is a nice video on how to do the modification from one of my favorite shops, Vespa Motorsport in San Diego.

Beyond scooters, I also really like all of the scooter dealer items. I collect all the odd-ball stuff from dealers. Brochures, service manuals, tools... you name it. I've been on the hunt for a 60's era Vespa sign for many years, and never found one. After all these years, one turned up on ebay in the hinterlands of California's Sierra Mountains. It was in a very small town, where it just so happened I knew people. I won the auction, and this sign with very heavy patina now hangs in my garage. I'm stoked!

The Salsbury is a legendary scooter, and one of my favorite of all time. It certainly set the standard for those that came after. To start with, the styling on it is timeless. In addition, it was technologically advanced. It was the first scooter that had a CVT, which is still used in all modern automatic scooters today. I've always wanted a Salsbury. In the pre-internet days, it was almost impossible to find one. Now that the internet has made everything available, the price is out of my reach. I can still admire it though. One of the nicest I have seen was just sold on ebay for a whopping $20,000 USD!

This is a very rare scooter, with an impossibly rare accessory sidecar, in stunning condition. It is no wonder that the price reached astronomical heights!

Enjoy more photos after the jump.

This is a nicely done video about a fellow in Los Angeles that restores and repairs 50's Italian motorcycles. There is indeed a shop for every vehicle niche, and that really is enabled by the internet... where else would you find customers for such a narrow focus? I love it!

Yeah, it isn't a scooter... but these would have been the motorcycle alternative to a scooter in Italy in the 50's. I have a '59 Gilera 150, and I can tell you it is no faster, and not much bigger than my '59 Vespa G.S. To my mind, the Gilera is the most beautiful of these 50's Italian bikes. The Ducati single that is briefly in the video is also stunning, if for no other reason than the outrageous fuel tank. I have no idea how they made them with so many complex curves!