Month: October 2006

Chicago scooter park-in: Sunday.

If you’re upset about the lack of legal scooter parking in Chicago, you’re not alone. The CHIscooterList Yahoo Group has planned a “Park In” this Sunday. The goal is to find a few consecutive parking spaces in the Loop and park one scooter in each, as per the law, for a photo shoot pointing out how ridiculous it is to not allow the sharing of parking spaces. The meeting and ride will start at The Players Club on Ashland, following the MotoGP race broadcast (the race ends around noon or 12:30). It’s a small first step in what will hopefully become an important city-wide scooter rights, advocacy, and education campaign.

The Hunnert Car Pileup

For the last few years, the Chrome Czars have organized the best hot-rod show around, the Hunnert Car Pileup. Each year it’s roughly doubled in size, and this Saturday, it will likely double again. Scooters are welcome, though only vintage scooters can enter the show area (at the discretion of the judges). The local scooter crowd usually turns out in force, and as usual, there’s a group ride planned down to the Grundy County Speedway in Morris, IL, meeting at the Krispy Kreme at Archer and Harlem (in Summit, IL) at 9am and leaving at 9:30 sharp. Weather is unpredictable this time of year, dress in layers. When you get there, look for the Galewood Cookshack (the RV with flames) for some chili (red or verde) made with their already-famous smoked pork. The show goes all day with bands, food, vendors, cars, and a Ring of Fire, and wraps up with more bands and drink at Fool’s Bar and Grill in Morris.

Kinetic’s U.S. importer?

For months, we’ve been trying to find out who would bring Kinetic’s “Italiano” line of former-Italjet scooters to the U.S. In the end, he found us. Armando Gonzalez of Phase2 Motors, in suburban Seattle, posted this comment Saturday:

Hello all, just stumbled on this site and caught the posts. Great comments. I met the Kinetic Managing Director last year in San Francisco and am working to re-start Kinetic distribution in the U.S. The current distributor based in Philly is ready to retire and has had trouble getting a strong product line from Kinetic. Now that the Italjets are available, things are looking up, but you are right about their priorities. I was in India in June and it’s hard for them to justify putting much emphasis on the U.S. market because our annual scooter sales are dwarfed by what they sell in Inida (even as the #4 scooter company). Anyhow, I’ve been trying to convince them that Velocifero and Dragster are the big ticket items in the U.S. I’m going to copy the above comments and pass them along to Kinetic (minus any names) to help bolster the case. If all goes according to plan I hope to get some of these hot models into the U.S. sometime next year. Please chk out my site and send me an email if you have suggestions. I’m going to have to setup a dealer network from scratch and will need all the viral marketing help I can get. Pls keep those candid comments coming.

We’ve sent a slew of questions to Armando about Italjet, Kinetic, and his plans, we’ll publish his replies when we get them. Thanks for chiming in, Armando!

Update: A little more info about P2Motors and the Kinetic situation on the ScooterBBS. To clarify, P2Motors does not yet have a deal in place with Kinetic, but is working toward taking over from Cosmopolitan Motors. Cosmopolitan is Kinetic’s current importer, and has been for some time, but–for whatever reason–has brought very little visibilty to the brand in the U.S.

Kinetic: Blaze to U.S.

Kinetic is back in the news, saying more or less the same thing they’ve been saying, minus the “Velociferos to America” part and instead saying we have the Blaze (“the third-best selling scooter in India!”) to look forward to. Why a company with the rights to, and tooling for, the entire Italjet line would chunk out boring “family” scooters before the Dragster is beyond us. Then again, Piaggio hasn’t brought the Gilera Runner to the US, so what do we know?

More news from PiaggioUSA’s dealer meeting

Dan Kay of Old Towne Motocycle Shoppe has confirmed, as we reported Monday, that the U.S. version of the Piaggio MP3 three-wheeled scooter will feature Piaggio’s 250cc electronic-fuel-injected QUASAR engine, the same engine found in the Vespa GTS. Kay also confirmed that Piaggio was for some reason unable to use the name “MP3” in the U.S., and no name has been chosen yet: “Europe wants alpha-numeric, Americans would prefer a name.” The renamed MP3 will arrive at U.S. Vespa dealers in March or April 2007. Kay’s impression:

Very interesting! The integrated trunk with seat pass-through is a nice touch. The front suspension with the electronic stabilizer is trick, [and] the extra front wheel feels a lot less squirrely on grooved pavement and metal grates. Most people won’t steer as agressively to notice that a GTS is a bit more maneuverable.

In other news from the meeting:

  • Piaggio/Vespa MSRP price increases will take effect on November 1.
  • PiaggioUSA will soon announce the 60th anniversary models. Only 250 individually-numbered GT60s will be sold in the U.S. The bikes feature grey paint to match the original Vespa MP6 prototype, with a fender light and a leather seat. Other goodies include a wallet, key fob, book, and custom satin cover. The owner’s initials will be engraved on a silver plate mounted to the scooter. The 60th-anniversary GTV and LXV models will be a darker “Aveo Grey” with brown leather seats and retro-style speedometers. MSRP for the LXV is $5199, so we figure the GT60 is one of those things where, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
  • Kay tells us Piaggio has more new models on the horizon, but he isn’t sharing, as “to not take attention away from the three-wheeler.” Fair enough.
  • Aprilia’s new big-wheeled Sportcity 250 features the same Quasar engine as the MP3 and the GTS. It’ll come to the U.S. halfway through 2007, in the “mid fours.” The Aprilia Mojito 150 will also return to the U.S, at a new lower price in the “mid-threes.”

PiaggioUSA dealer meeting: photos

A few photos of the first Piaggio MP3 in America, at the Piaggio Dealer meeting in San Antonio today. Dealers had the chance to see and ride the new MP3. No confirmation from our source yet on which model is coming, or if the name will be changed for the US market (Prior to the meeting, PiaggioUSA had been referring to it as “Piaggio Three Wheeler.” Catchy!) More info to come!