Retro Racing En Francaise

The New Cafe Racer Society once again posted an interesting photo of some vintage scooter action. This time it was of some ancient GS150 racers and originated at the French vintage machine racing blog, Retro Racing. The site has a distinctive streamlined scooter slant and well worthy of a notation for future reading. A scan down the left side of the page reveals a treasure trove of links, some of which may seem familiar from your own list of bookmarked sites. I immediately felt like there was a long lost frere out there. If you start getting all misty-eyed with nostalgia of a bygone era, keep your grip on your MODern sensibilities with a visit to the other Franco-Scooter blog, Scooter Station. Vive la France.

12 thoughts on “Retro Racing En Francaise”

  1. Amazing photos! Don’t miss the “Archive” links in the right column. Every one of them is the kind of stuff a motorcycle enthusiast will like. I didn’t see any other scooter stuff, though.

  2. I was referring to the Retro Racing site. TNCRS has a wide range of stuff. Lots of 2 wheel stuff in general.

  3. Hello, I am the webmaster of racing retro.

    Thanks for the link (and sorry for my very poor English).

    I didn’t know the site where I found this photo. Perhaps on a flickr’s album?

    In fact, on this picture, this is not a Vespa 150GS.
    These are the famous Vespa “Sei Giorni”.
    In 1951, International Six Days Trial (great “enduro” race since 1913) takes place at Varese, in Italy.
    For advertising campaign and national pride, Piaggio decides to hire some Vespa scooters specially prepared on the basis of vespa 125 sport.
    Vespa 125 Sport are already commercially available since 1950.
    Piaggio wants to prove Vespa’s reliability.
    In 50’s, scooters compete easily with 125cc motorcycles.
    Improvements to create “Sei Giorni” Vespa: headlight stronger, bigger brakes, 10 inch wheels, reinforced clutch, controled ignition advance at the Handlebar (like some motorbikes), megaphone exhaust pipe, and a max speed of 95kph !!! …
    These “Six Days” Vespa are almost prototypes, not marketed.
    But a commercial series will be derived from this official competition scooter from 1951 to 1953: the vespa 125 sport “sei giorni”, only product 300 models.

    The following site compares the two commercial sport series.
    http://www.elogioallavespa.it/vespe50.html#vespa6giorni

    and this other site shows several racing models
    http://www.vespa-servizio.com/storia/1943-1953/

    With members of the association scootentole, we also organize old scooter races, september 19th 2009
    http://scootentolenevers2009.blogspot.com/

  4. Hello,

    It isn’t a real mystery photo…

    They’re 2 official vespa pilots at XXVIth ISDT : Bruno ROMANO on the left and Alberto VIVALDI on the right.

  5. Merci, JR. Vous avez un blog fantastique! Pardon mon mal Francais. Je pratique plus. Mon Vespa Technica IV comprend les Sei Giorni aussi. Merci beaucoups pour la link de elogiallavespa.it!

  6. Hello,

    Good question, beautiful old dedicaced picture !!

    In my blog, a first answer.
    http://retor.blogspot.com/2009/08/sei-giorni-episode-2.html

    The early answer is relatively simple, provided by the excellent book “Vespa: un’avventura italiana nel mondo” coordinated by Davide Mazzanti, p84.

    It’s the Vespa “Sei Giorni” No. 90 participating in the 26th ISDT (International Six Days Trial) between Varese and San Remo in 1951.

    And after the playful smile right driver, it must be Giuseppe CAU.

    the text must be a dedication among drivers vespa team.

    Only remains to find the exact location of the photo.

    JR

  7. I found another photo (with no name) of the #90 bike, but that’s more info than I’d found, thanks!

    Surely that’s the same bike and you’ve found the rider, but in Justin’s photo, the bike doesn’t appear to have a fenderlight, and in that photo and the one I found, it does, so I wonder if maybe it was a different race? Or maybe it’s just the angle of the photo…

  8. I suppose during the day, pilots protected the fenderlight.
    Many of dangerous littel rocks on the road.
    Watch carefully the picture, there is a form above the mudguard as a sock !!

  9. Ah, JR, I think you’re right! Amazing! Allright, now it’s just up to Justin to spend a few hours on Google Maps to find the location!

  10. JR, thanks for all the wonderful info on the mysterious black and white Vespa photo I posted on my blog. I would love to leave a comment on your blog—but it seems you have comments disabled.

    The funny thing is, if you’re right that the photo was taken somewhere between Varese and San Remo, I actually drove between San Remo and Genova on the A10 just last year on the way from Nice to Cinque Terre. In fact I wrote a pretty funny story about getting stuck in a tunnel on the way:En route vers Cinque Terre.

    It’s possible that in my photo we’re seeing the Mediterranean sea in the distance, which means it could have been taken anywhere between San Remo and Voltri, before the riders crossed the coastal mountains into the plains of northern Italy.

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