A lot of people attempt to fix up an old scooter. Not a lot of people take the time to document the steps and the work that goes into the undertaking.
Here's a blog by a guy in Canada who is getting to the end of a two-year restoration on a rare '52 Allstate. As I discussed in an earlier post, the '52 was the first year that Piaggio imported scooters into North America, and they were only sold by Sears under the "Allstate" name. There are two versions of the '52, and this is the later version with the US outline badge.
Luckily for him, he made friends with a good body man. The cowls and front fender on these early Allstates were made of aluminum. They are easy to dent, and hard to repair properly. You could easily pour thousands of dollars into making a messed up frame look correct.
At this point, he's got the motor out for a rebuild, and the frame appears to be done. I'm interested to see the progress of how he gets the cables and wiring in the frame. They sure are a pain to do on these early scooters!