For our readers in the Okanagan Valley, here’s your chance to win a Vespa by supporting rural Canadian ballet. Help out Ballet Kelowna as they face division rival Kamloops for the WHL conference title!
Month: August 2006
Spacehopper Quadrophenia
The mighty Spacehopper Quadrophenia, endorsed by no other than Pete Townshend, who describes the original, “…it’s just a boy getting on a train, and going to fucking Brighton.” (Thanks, Cha-cha)
Scooternista does the math
Scooternista, a new scooter blog, follows “Modelcarguy” and his quest for two (or three) wheels. The perspective is interesting as he’s not really sure what he wants (he’s leaning towards an Ape or Bajaj threewheeler at the moment) and he’s not entirely sold on the scooter concept to begin with, so his indecision is our gain. Like us, he was dubious of the “scooter economy” promised by Piaggio’s Vespanomics site (and every other scooter company, dealer, and newspaper article). He did the math related to his situation and found what we suspected– in most cases, there are better reasons than economics to buy a scooter.
We’re working on a story outlining the successes (we’re happy to report there are some!) and shortcomings of Piaggio’s “Vespanomics” and “Open Letter to Mayors” PR campaigns, look for it later this week. Please get in touch if you have any insight.
Maryland scooter theft boom
Every positive action has a negative reaction, and trust 2strokebuzz, the Eeyore of scooter blogs, to find it for you: Scooter thefts are on the rise in Annapolis, MD (and presumably elsewhere).
A real Roman holiday
We usually cringe when a Vespa story starts with a reference to Roman Holiday, but this travelogue, by a young journalist that saw Rome from the pillion seat of a Vespa, is aptly titled and worth a read.
Vespatude
Jonathan Pait’s blog, Vespatude, started about a year ago when he bought a Vespa on eBay. Surely he planned to write about his travels and adventures, but unfortunately he’s spent the year learning why you should never buy an Asian restoration on eBay. Currently, he’s trying to raise some money for a new engine (“Million Dollar Homepage”-style), if you’re in the market for a vintage scooter, throw a few bucks his way to thank him for saving you the trouble of finding out the hard way.
Vespa saturates Ohio
VespaUSA seems to be continuing their abandonment of the boutique, and minimizing their once-strict dealer requirements, as more and more Vespa shops appear in unlikely places. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that a Vespa dealership has opened within a print-shop in northern Kentucky, across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. The new store currently has no dealer license, so sales and service are handled through an Ohio motorcycle dealer, Midwest Power Sports, in Batavia, an eastern suburb of Cincinnati.
Neither shop is listed on VespaUSA’s site, nor do they appear to be part of the Vespa Ohio franchise that includes Vespa Cincinnati (in Blue Ash, northeast of town), Vespa Cleveland, and Vespa Akron. The Kentucky and Batavia shops, as well as a new dealer in Medina (south of Cleveland) seem awfully close to Vespa Ohio’s turf. Vespa Cincinnati, less than 20 miles away, must be excited to read in the paper that, “There must be a need in the intercity area. There are only one or two scooter stores in town, and they only sell Japanese scooters.”
Elsewhere in Ohio, dealers can be found in Columbus and rural New Philadelphia. While this expansion trend is likely infuriating some dealers who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on real estate and advertising, it’s good to see PiaggioUSA finally treating the Vespa as a motor vehicle rather than jewelry.
Gadabout town on a Swallow
Barry Hartnell of Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia shows off his motorcycle collection to the ABC, including his pride and joy, a Swa… sorry, Swall… snort! er, Swallow Gadabout, made by:
“…the people who went on to make Jaguar motor cars. (The Vespa) arrived in England and they didn’t have anything to counter it, so they quickly sat down and made this horrible little bike out of steam pipe and tin…”
A 1950 scooter book in Hartnell’s possession:
“…shows all the bikes from A to Z, and when it comes to the Swallow Gadabout, there are seven and a half pages of it’s virtues and how wonderful the bike is and further on in the book you get to “V” for Vespa and it simply says ‘small scooter made in Italy’.”
Great story, great quotes.
Kymco sponsors Montreal Grand Prix
In their continuing quest to get involved in anything with wheels, Kymco’s Super9 has been named the official scooter of the Champ Car Montreal Grand Prix.
“A Scooter Friendly Town”
Denver CBS Channel 4’s coverage of Amerivespa. I’d concur, I saw more scooters around Denver than in any other American city I’ve visited, and the local turnout for the rally was astounding.
Merry-go-round
If this doesn’t set you off looking for a playground on your way home tonight, nothing will. I hope those kids are allright. Via Cy.)
Blaze in Japan, Blasé in U.S.
After the initial (positive) response to the Kinetic Blaze in the Indian press, and reports in May that Kinetic’s version of the Italjet Velocifero would (“soon”) be coming (exclusively) to America, Kinetic has been pretty quiet. Now they’ve announced the Blaze is going to be exported to Japan, but still no official word on Velociferos or America, not to mention the one word we all want to hear: “Dragster.”
Taming of the Shrewd
The Boston Phoenix’s review of the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s “Taming of the Shrew” succumbed to a Vespa marketing gimmick even as they acknowledged it:
Paul Farwell’s Baptista is a smooth old-country operator, and there is a spry, athletic turn by Antonio Edwards Suarez as Petruchio’s hyperactive manservant, Grumio, who arrives with his master on a leopard-skin-seated Vespa. (Nice product placement for corporate sponsor Herb Chambers Vespa.)
Oops, we fell for it too. Damn you, Herb Chambers and your wily marketing department!
Qatar two-fiffy roundup.
Four 250cc scooters and the Yamaha Morphous compared for posterity, from Qatar’s Peninsula newspaper. (Note: Turns out this was not from Qatar, but a poorly-credited wire story by Susan Carpenter of the Los Angeles Times, it also ran in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette with a good photo and better proofreading.)
The Trautwein-Roller: MP3 in 1984?
Check out Marcus Kabst’s fantastic history of the Trautwein-Roller: Is this proof that Piaggio’s groundbreaking MP3 three-wheeler is actually based on a design tested and patented 22 years ago? Here’s a very rough — and condensed — translation:
“Are scooters steered with two front wheels conceivable? If you subscribe to the ideas of inventor Wolfgang Trautwein, vehicles of this kind may soon appear on the streetscape. […] Dr. Wolfgang Trautwein, 53, engineer from Meersburg at the Bodensee, received two original Vespa scooters in the middle of 1984 from Piaggio from Genova, in order to build prototypes. [This concept was] suggested by [Trautwein,] using the Vespa platform, exactly three decades after the first Motorcycle was equipped with a double-front chassis. Under their hoods, the Vespa tricycles hide the newest variant of the Trautwein front axle for motorcycles, a parallelogram axle […] Thus, the scooter effectively avoids wheel-flutter. […] The suspension is arranged so that the wheels do not only turn when rolling, but also tilt. The floorboards of the Vespa are firmly connected to the lower parallelogram, and follow its movements. […] Trautwein stresses that this changed style of driving comes relatively easily to the driver. And according to Trautwein’s statements, the chassis offers some safety advantages: Decreased hazard of front end slip on wet pavement, rails, etc. Safer braking, and improved cornering. Better handling. […] Space for a trunk over the front axle. […] Also, the comfort is quite convincing.”
So if the translation is marginally close, it appears Piaggio assisted in the development of, but did not produce, an MP3-like version of the Vespa PK 125 and a PX 200 more than two decades ago. They even filed patents for the design. Judging by the photos, at least one working prototype of each version was made. The PX200 model sported hydraulic disc brakes — twelve years before they became standard on the PX200. Amazing. (Thanks for another great link, POCphil. Note that there’s also some great info on Marcus’ page about other three-wheelers and similar concept scooters.)