At the very least they had the good sense to use Gotham Rounded for their copy… it’s pretty much the only contemporary thing about this ad.

And yeah on bicycles, though there are people (like me, though I’ve actually been taking the bicycle for local errands lately) that are just too fat and lazy to ride a bike more than a mile or two, and there are people who want to be conveyed in style to work without having to take a shower when they get there.

I think that there’s a big future for electric scooters once they stop trying to make them look like scooters or bicycles and once they get the price (and weight) down a bit and the range up. It’s going to take a fresh new idea, some creative engineering, and a lot of marketing money, revamping a 250-lb metal scooter (or worse yet, adding superficial bodywork to a lightweight frame) isn’t the answer.

motorcycles and scooters (and the people who buy and ride them) universally consider any 3 digit numbers appended to a model name to mean displacement.

Yes, but it isn’t going to be motorcyclists and scooterists who buy this thing, it’s going to be White People whose only knowledge of scootering is hearing the name “Lambretta” and somehow thinking it’s cool. See the entry about Vespa scooters.

The fact remains, an electric scooter is less useful (and much less environmentally friendly) than a human-pedaled bicycle, and is something only a person who wishes to convey a greener-than-thou image would actually spend the money on. But people fitting this description usually have lots of money…

“Nova” (“No Va,” or “Doesn’t Go”) was a bigger faux pas.

As far as the general public not knowing about displacement, sure, and cars use all kinds of random numbers, but motorcycles and scooters (and the people who buy and ride them) universally consider any 3 digit numbers appended to a model name to mean displacement.

Obviously electric vehicles are a new playing field, but the name “GP200″ is clearly based on the Lambretta model it lovingly emulates/knocks off (and why not the GP150 or 125, or the DL?). And in that case, the “200″ is displacement. “eGP” would be a better name, or “eGP1″ or “GP-e” unless they’re going to get into ampere-hours and such. Or, they could just start from scratch and give it an original but appropriate name, eg “Stella,” “Buddy,” etc.

Bb.

My Vespa GTS has two very prominent “250″ emblems, yet in every single conversation I’ve ever had with a passer-by who wanted to tell me they like it, the question “how big is the engine?” always comes up. Always. Few people make the connection. Remember the Nissan 200 SX? I think the JDM version had a 2.0-liter engine, but the U.S. model’s was 2.4. It’s a model name, and one they can be sure won’t have any negative connotations in any language. Unlike, say, the AMC Matador (“killer” in Spanish)…

Still, i argue, if this is an SIL-manufactured bike with some original engineering and full reverence, it’ll be great.

If it’s the Lambretta version of the Hammerhead fake-Vespa (Chinese-made plastic copy,) it might even be decent, but that’s not the product implied by this ad at all.

If it’s some piece of Chinese crap with a hint of superficial Lambrettaness, this ad is fraud.