September 2012 Archives

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... While you may think you are looking at a mid-50's Vespa, these two scooters are actually the Soviet-made Viatkas.  The Vyatka was quite similar to the Vespa, but was heavier and slower.  It had larger wheels, and it looks like from the photo above, a grab handle at the back to pull it out of mud and snow.  All in all, the Soviets could have done a lot worse than their Vespa clone.  (The later models of Vyatka were Soviet designed.  Though they were utilitairan, they were style-less boxes on wheels) 

As far as I can tell, the Vespa-clone version of the Vyatka was made from around 1957 to 1965.  Supposedly three-hundred thousand were made.  If true, that is a pretty huge number, even compared to the real Vespa.  However, consider the harsh Russian climate, poor roads, and legendary poor build quality of Soviet vehicles... and as you can imagine, not many seem to have survived.  A handful of these have made it to the US.  Have never seen one in person, but there was actually one for sale recently in Utah.  I can't say that I would want one myself, but it is a very interesting side-note on the Vespa story.

The custom Lambretta from Supertune was a special dealer custom that was made in the UK in the late-60's.  The company Supertune had several versions of their special, and I believe they called this 200cc version the "Rallye."  They started with a SX200, and went to town on it.  The most obvious alteration was that they lowered the headset down by cutting the fork and the legshield.  You can see the difference between the custom and the stock SX200 in the top photo.  Then, there is the custom paint, which is quite cool, if you ask me. They also added ball-end levers for safety in competition.  On the inside of the scooter, they did some work to the top end.  Mainly through porting, and increasing compression by lowering the cylinder head.  The idea was that the scooter would still be eligible to compete in scooter racing in the stock engine class.  It was a very sweet scooter that commands a tidy sum today, if you can find one of the few that were made.

Gotta agree with this one

Back in 1951, the giant retail pioneer Sears took a gamble and imported 1,000 Vespa 125s to see if they would sell. The gamble paid off, and for the next 15 years or so you would find Vespas listed in their massive yearly mail-order catalog.  (No kidding, it was MASSIVE; find one from the 50's or 60's. It'll blow your mind.) 

Sears re-branded everything as their house brand "Allstate", and wasn't shy about mixing different makes together so they'd have a variety of scooters & small motorbikes to suit as many customers as possible. You'd find Cushmans, Puchs, and who knows what else side by side in the catalog every year . . . as this 1954 page testifies. Scroll down for a close-up of the good stuff.

Dano, head of the Scooterlounge IT team, was having some problems with his lights on his SX 200.  So we decided to have a little evening session to get them sorted out.  The SX is totally stock, with the exception of electronic ignition.  So we worked, like any good detective, going through the electrics methodically, part by part.  First we checked that there was power from the stator.  Yes.  Then we checked for power to the loom.  Yes.  Then we moved up to the headset, and checked the connections up there.  Ultimately, we found a bad ground in the wiring junction at the headlight.  That is a common source of lighting problems.  Problem solved.

One thing I wanted to highlight was Dano's regulator. Dano had Lambretta expert dial in his scooter, Derek in San Jose. Derek modified an old Lambretta regulator/rectifier box so that it could discretely hide a small regulator. He cut the bakelite internals and discarded the old electrical items. Using the old connectors at the top, he soldered in the needed connections for the regulator to the loom. When the cover is on, you can't tell that it is anything but stock. Very very nicely done!

This is the follow-up to this post where I discovered the dead piston in my friend Andrew's P200.

It took me a bit of time, but I got a new top end shipped in. I also figured that I should just tear the motor apart and inspect everything. I'm glad I did.

This is a shot of the motor when I got it most of the way apart.  As you can see, the gears are out.  At this point, next steps were to take out the crank and work on the shift cross.

There have not been a lot of Lambrettas cropping up on eBay in the last few months. Maybe people were out riding! Now there are a few decent looking scoots for sale on the East Coast. First is a Series II Li 150 in New Hampshire. The seller does not seem to know what they have, and what little information they post is wrong. I would approach this one with care... maybe it is a scam?

Then, there is this very original looking Jet 200 Serveta near Philadelphia. It is just the kind of scoot you like to see. It has some rust, and some neglect, but appears to be un-messed with. It still has the refectors on the front fender, though the front turn signals are removed. If you cleaned it up, you could drive it as-is. Right now it is only at $850 (reserve not met). This could end up being a bargain if the reserve isn't too crazy.

Do you fancy yourself a scooter collector? Then prepare to be humbled... A collector in Austria is selling out what seems like a lifetime of scooter collecting in one big lot. He has pulled together a vast group of scooters from many different manufacturers. Note, there's not a Vespa or Lambretta to be seen among them. Too pedestrian, I suppose... If you would like to set up your own museum, check out the listing here on eBay. I can't imagine how much it would cost to ship all these scooters from Austria to anywhere, but I guess if you have the money to buy them all, you have the money to ship them. I sure am curious to see where they end up!

Do you like this blog, but are too enfeebled to navigate to it on a regular basis?  Well then, have we got a deal for you!  The technical wizards who work in the Scooterlounge.com IT development department have come up a nifty new 'Atom' feed for the blog. 

Just click the orange RSS feed button at the top of your browser, and voila!, you are subscribed.  New posts will fly through the interwebz tubes directly to your computer.  No pesky clicking, no annoying thinking, it just magically shows up there.  How, you ask?  I don't know.  The eggheads in IT explained it to me, but all I heard was "bleep, bloop, blorp, nerd, nerd nerd".  No matter... subscribe to our new RSS and I'll promise to pet my cute and fuzzy doggie for you.  My dog thanks you in advance.