Category: The Biz

Weird Chicago Ride

We’ve seen a good number of Halloween rides over the years, but Scooterworks Chicago has taken things a step farther and organized a spooky ride curated and hosted by the experts at Weird Chicago on November 7 2010. The Weird Chicago Scooter Ride leaves at noon from Scooterworks after a 10am brunch at Fireside Restaurant (down the street). Brunch is a steal at $10, and the tour is $15, half-price from Weird Chicago’s usual tours (they won’t have to gas up the bus for this one). The ride runs until 8:30pm and visits “various sites where famous killings and crimes took place in the mob era of old Chicago.” Lots of people dress up for the ride, I love when people wear their silver vampire grillz its a great touch on any costume.

LML Must Pay Tariff on “Engineering Drawings”

To your average Economic Times of India reader, it’s a boring Indian tariff law ruling. To a scooterist, it’s a gateway into a world of mystique and speculation. Where is LML importing engineering drawings from? Are they related to LML’s long-delayed plans to manufacture their Clipper/Vespa ET4? Is it an 8-stroke 1200cc Stella? WHEN WILL WE GET IT!?

(Thanks, Rob!)

SIP Scooter Shop Photos And Hints Of Another New Lambretta

SIP Scootershop has a great collection of photos on flickr from INTERMOT in Germany. Among the photos were several interesting snaps of new offerings. First, one that caught my eye as a novel design for an electric scooter. I’m not sure of the origin. Please, if anyone recognizes it chime in. According the the INTERMOT booth chart the company next to Hyosung-Germany is “SUZHOU HANDE ELECTRIC BICYCLE CO.”. I think it’s just a good use of long, horizontal, flat floorboards and the raised channels space as well as other ergonomically sensible configuration aspects.

But most interesting was the appearance of the Lambretta name in one of the photos. Sadly, no machine. While several entities vie for the Lambretta name and image, the teaser image on the web-site is attractive if even just the tail end. This group is apparently Irish, spreading the claim to yet another nation. Hopefully we’ll have even more to write about this and other new Lambretta efforts soon.

It’s Time to GIVI Thanks

About a month back I received a call from Phil Waters from Pride of Cleavland Scooters. He had an offer I ultimately couldn’t refuse. GIVI USA offered an opportunity attend the Indianapolis Motorcycle Grand Prix as guest of the LCR Honda MotoGP team, run by Lucio Checchinello. Phil was generous and thoughtful enough to pass this opportunity along to an enormous fan of MotoGP. An impromptu ten hour road trip later I was rewarded with the VIP treatment in the exclusive Grand Prix paddock and the privileged of watching qualifying practice from the LCR Honda pit garage while rider Randy DePuniet put in his best efforts while recovering from a violent crash only weeks before where he broke his leg. We were hosted by team representatives Elisa Pavan and Oscar Haro who lead us out to spend time right on the pit wall during the closing minutes of qualifying when riders were putting in their last ditch efforts for pole position. Our paddock passes allowed us amazing access to spend time rubbing elbows with the greatest motorcycle racers in the world. Sunday we watched the race from the main grandstands and had a wonderful time before heading back on a non-stop drive back to Minnesota.

I just wanted to give special thanks to POC Phil, Givi USA and the LCR Honda Team (links to their Facebook pages). Without this opportunity my next post regarding the Lambretta Racing Team wouldn’t have been possible! Stay tuned.

(/shamelessplug)

SIL to be Sold,
Lambretta Future Unclear as Ever

The Indian government is looking to sell their majority share of Scooters India Limited, who manufactured Lambrettas until 1998, and currently manufacture the Vikram three-wheeler. Mahindra and Mahindra and Tata Motors have both expressed interest and at least one story suggests that on top of a promised $30 million relaunch of Vespa production in India, Piaggio (gasp!) is also interested in SIL.

SIL’s greatest asset may be their “world right (to) the trade name Lambretta/Lambro,” but according to the in.com story linked above, SIL’s ownership of the name is currently in dispute with the Swiss/Italian Lambretta Consortium, who appears better-equipped to win the fight.
Continue reading “SIL to be Sold,
Lambretta Future Unclear as Ever”

Piaggio’s New Business Plan

Piaggio announced a new business plan today:

The plan is focused on new industrial plants in India and in Vietnam, on strengthening the commercial presence in Asian markets via new products and on development of new technologies for European and American markets…”

This clearly breaks the paradigm and thinks outside the box of Piaggio’s 2007 plan to build more scooters in India and Vietnam and Brazil, while strengthening their commercial presence in Asian markets via new products and on development of new technologies for European and American markets.

Colaninno is surely a visionary, but I bet I can predict his 2012 plan: Piaggio will manufacture more different scooters, and sell them to people, at a profit — wait for it — around the world! If we’re all lucky, that may still include the United States

Fuji X-100 (Not a Scooter)

As a scooterist/reader of this site, you’ll surely know the feeling of consumerist love at first sight. I’ve become obsessed with countless vehicles at countless rallies and motorcycle trade shows, and I’m sure you have too. Once in a while, you get to the point where you see an early prototype and know you will eventually own that bike, as long as the manufacturer doesn’t screw up between the concept and manufacturing stages (sadly they usually do!)

Well, this week Fuji Co. (The film/camera concern, totally unrelated to Fuji Heavy Industries of Fuji Rabbit scooter and Subaru fame) unveiled the camera of my dreams, and gave me a lot of insight about the scooter market and the difference between what consumers want, what they think they want, and what they get. On top of that, I know of at least two other scooterist designer/photographers that are counting the days and saving pennies until it’s released, so maybe it’s of interest to scooterists in general.
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The 2010 Paris Auto Show,
aka École des Faux-Scoots


Everyone and their mom including Mini (BMW) and Smart are planning to unveil world-changing e-scooters at the Paris Auto Show on September 30 and October 1. Everyone and their mom has a really nice set of magic markers. We’re not anti- e-scooters, I just think this is a lot of hype for what will ultimately be some pretty underwhelming vehicles. And you all know how 2sb feels about concepts.

Marginally more interesting to me are as-yet unsubstantiated rumors of a new BMW “big” scooter and an odd Marabese-designed 4-wheel scooter called “Quadro” set to be unveiled the day before the show. Here’s a “spy” video of the Quadro, merci, Charles for the news). While a four-wheeled scooter brings to mind a certain Onion story and the SMRFmobile 5-wheel MP3 from last weeks’ comments, Charles argues that Frenchmen want a big powerful safe scooter they can drive with a regular automotive license, so there’s apparently a thriving market of aspiring T-Max and MP3 owners pining for those extra wheels. We shall see, I guess.

(People sending me the Smart and Mini links are too numerous to thank personally, but thanks to all of you!)

MORE! Photos of the MINI and Smart scooter prototypes via Nathaniel and Eric, who rightly mentions the Mini concepts seems a bit more realistic and thought-out, whereas the Smart ones look like macro photos of Playmobil scooters (I’m paraphrasing there).

Thoughts On 2-Wheeler Trends?

As powersports industry struggles from snowmobiles to scooters, there will be changes for producers and consumers. Some folks may make less money on each sale and there may be fewer options for people looking to purchase a new ride. But transcending the current problems and powered by the fact that as long as there’s a desire to buy a product there will be someone selling, the question arises as to what the next trend in the market will be. Manufacturers and customizers want to get out in front of the trend to maximize their share of the market and claim ‘FIRST’ with a bit more authority than the rest of the herd that shifts directions and takes the landscape like locusts on a fresh field. The Kneeslider’s Paul Crowe offers some interesting thoughts on the motorcycle market in relation to ‘customs’ and what the next trend may or may not be. As for scooters there have been a few trends like ‘sport’ scooters that take after a full fairing sportbike and just cut out the tank and make room for a step-through area or ‘retro’ scooters that create few sharp edges in their plastic skin, often reminiscent of the classic Vespa. Both kinds, in my opinion, often leave out the thoughtful design but that’s a top for another day. Are there other trends to be embraced in scooters? Why do we need new ones? Wouldn’t making one right for once be a good idea?

Scooter Superstore
and the Beginning of the End

On July 27, Scooter Superstore of America, a Ft. Lauderdale-based chain with several dealerships in Florida and Georgia, filed for bankruptcy. While many shops have closed their doors lately, and individual importers have faced some unique problems, SSTAM’s trouble could be–pardon the tired idiom–the straw that breaks the industry’s back.
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and the Beginning of the End”

Genuine: Discounts Coming

Tweet from Genuine honcho Philip McCaleb:

Genuine scooter will announce “save ferris” prices for 150, 125, blackjack, and 2 stroke stellas early next week.

Thanks to a combination of the economy, market saturation, too much regulation too late, and bad luck, things are bad for everyone in the industry right now, sadly even the best of ’em. Again, I promise a big story over the weekend with some more details about what’s going on behind the scenes in the industry.

SYM auctions 110 scooters

Guido Ebert reports SYM USA is auctioning 110 scooters, in various states of title… ed… ness.

It’s unclear from Ebert’s story where these 110 scooters came from, but as we’ll discuss in detail in a coming story, in the rapidly-declining scooter market, most scooter importers and their dealer financiers (usually GE Capital) are finding themselves with large numbers of scooters returned when dealers default on financing, considering the title situation, we’d bet that’s the source here.