July 2012 Archives

This is a cool press photo of a Vespa dealer in Colorado back in the day. The Rally 180 is nice, and shows some of the special US-only features.  It has oil injection, the small sealed-beam headlight with a chrome bezel, small reflectors on the front mudguard, and you can just barely make out the CEV tail light at the back.  Note, he's wearing cowboy boots! How cool is that!  The smallframe in the background looks like a Vespa 90.  If so, it would be one that was still kicking around from the first series bunch that were imported in 1964.

I'm back from vacation, and posting should resume its normal pace.

I'm going to be on the road for a few days, and I don't expect to have computer access. Posting will resume late next week. See you then!

Back in the day, Vespa and Lambretta were not the only scooters in the game. Just about every major motorcycle manufacturer tried to pull in some profits from the large scooter market in the 50's. One of those companies was TWN in Germany. They built the Tessy. A very few of these made it to the US, and it looks like one survivor is now for sale on eBay.

Obviously, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but personally, I don't find the Tessy to be particularly pretty. Odd, yes, but pretty, no. This one looks like a fine basis for a restoration, if that is your thing. It looks like it is almost totally original. From the paint to the seat, it all looks old, but stock. On the other hand, it is missing the side covers, which could be a major problem. Certainly you are unlikely to find those in the US, and would have to search in Europe. There are quite a few bids on this thing already, and it is up above $500. Withe four days still to go on the auction, where will it land?

I've been working on a VBA on-and-off for quite awhile.  Eventually the owner decided to put the original motor on a shelf, and install a newer P125 motor for increased reliability and power.  I built the motor up for him, and installed it in the scoot.  Now it was time for it to return to its owner.  He lives about an hour and a half drive from me, across several bridges and long highway stretches, so trucking it was the best answer. 

I've seen too many scooters just leaned over in a truck, or tied with rope... if you do that, you're doing it wrong.  Here's how I move scooters.  First, I get my truck ready.  Note: it helps to have a friend assist with loading, but I almost always end up going solo.  I try to move my truck so that I have some sort of raised area behind the rear wheels.  This makes the distance up to the rear gate much less.  My old house had a nice curb, and it was super easy to load.  As you can see in the photo above, my current joint doesn't have such a luxury, so I use a light rise in the street.  I also point the truck down the hill, so as to use gravity to my advantage. 

As you see, everything is set up, the ramp is obvious.  Less obvious are the tie downs, which I have set on top of the edge of the truck bed, so I can reach them when I get the scooter up there.

I'm guessing that this was an ad for a company that was importing Indian-made Lambrettas back into Italy, after Innocenti stopped production. Nonetheless, it is a great ad. What a photo!

Robin B. is a friend who has been out of the scooter game for awhile. Recently, he decided to get another scoot. He's looked at quite a few, but settled on this really fine red 1974 Rally 200. I think he did quite well for himself with this one!

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I've been on vacation. I'm back for a week, then I'll be off again for another week. One of these days I'll figure out how to set posts to publish on a set date. In the mean time, it is just me pressing "publish."

Anyhow, Edward from the Philippines sent in a photo of his cool Vespa Sprint. Cool ride man!