Piaggio bombs?

More good PR for Piaggio: A recent study exposed a 1942 plan hatched by the Fascists and Piaggio test pilot Niccolò Lama to bomb New York City from a Piaggio P-23R airplane flying from France. (Thirty-five years later, their dreams would be realized when the P-series Vespa arrived on American soil.)

Can an Adly pull a pop-up camper?

pathecaravan.jpg

If the Lambretta tent video we posted a few months ago was inspiring, but a tent just isn’t “all-mod-cons” enough for you, check out this video from the same source (Britsh Pathe Archives): a Lambretta towing a pop-up camper. I can’t imagine that it was wise to load a 150 or 175cc engine, even when factory-fresh, with a pop-up camper AND a boat AND gear AND a pillion passenger AND a sidecar with a child. (Thanks, Dan Epstein, who sent this so long ago he surely forgot about it.)

Vicious Cycles

Vicious Cycles

Dave McCabe has long been searching for a short film he remembers seeing before Star Wars or Indiana Jones at the Polar Theater in Anchorage. He finally found it on good ol’ YouTube. Despite a resurgence in popularity in the 80s, Vicious Cycles was actually made in 1969. It’s a goofy live-action stop-motion animated film featuring the grungy Vicious Cycles MC facing off against the bowler-hat-clad Mild Ones Scooter Club. If nothing else, it proves the go-to newspaper headline “Mild Ones” (drink!) was already an old joke in 1969. It’s fantastic and authentic, right down to the squeaky Vespa drum brake sound. Stick around ’til the end for a Coke ad featuring vintage motorcycles and a public service announcement about loud pipes.

Return of the Fiat 500

Fiat 500
Manufacturers and marketers have sucked the efficiency and economy out of the Vespa, Beetle, and Mini, by repositioning them as upscale nostalgia items, so you just knew the Fiat Cinquecento would be next. It’s weird that you have to dig around the site to find actual photos of the car itself. The interior is handsome, but the body is not mind-blowing, nor does it evoke the original as successfully as the other retro-vehicles on the market.

Update In the five minutes since I posted this I learned that the car will be built in Poland and will be fairly inexpensive compared to the Beetle and Mini. Plus, the design is growing on me, I didn’t notice the rolltop at first. I just think the appeal of the Mini and 500 was in the paint and chrome and that’s all gone.

St. Louis Motomuseum/Motofest

St. Louis’ new Moto Museum is hosting a “History of the Motorcycle” exhibit featuring 100 bikes from 100 years, concurrent with the first St. Louis International Motorcycle Festival, April 26-29, 2007. It appears that the show will be the only public display of the collection, so it’s not a “museum” so much a “Jay Leno’s garage.” (You’d think Lu$ would keep us abreast of StL news, but no, this one came from Matthew, thanks!)

Portanje’s Nostalgia Collection

Kees Portanje’s famous Vespa museum has expanded their website since we last checked in (it’s been a few years!). The site now features hundreds of photos of Portanje’s scooters, album covers, posters, toys, and more. Good to know that the first three issues of 2strokebuzz are tucked away in a folder in a cabinet somewhere on the premises, waiting for a wave of mid-90s scooter-scene nostalgia.

Is the “Lambretta” name alive in Sri Lanka?

Following worldwide scooter news, I’ve occasionally seen stories from Sri Lanka, usually in business news or stock reports, mentioning “Lambretta (Ceylon) Ltd.” or “Lambretta Motors.” From what I can tell, Lambretta (Ceylon) Ltd. once manufactured Lambretta scooters in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), but was acquired in 2000 by a dairy company. It appears that company was renamed “Kotmale Holdings Ltd” in 2005, but I still see financial reports referring to “Lambretta Motors.” Surely there’s not an assembly line in Colombo secretly churning out SX200s, but I’d appreciate any information regarding Lambretta (Ceylon) Ltd and/or Lambretta Motors, if only because I’m curious about the name, whether they’re the same company or two separate companies, and what they’re doing these days.