Month: November 2006

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.

Scooter Swag Christmas

Scooter Swag (which I’ve been putting off posting about for ages, because I was trying to figure out a way to give it the props it deserves, but what the hell, i’ll just post it all snarky and halfass like this…) has a comprehensive rundown of the surprising number of scooter Christmas ornaments available this season. For the record, Tracy, Precious Moments figurines are neither “ironic” nor “cute,” even with a scooter.

Indian government demands justification for LML lockout

From the Hindustani Times, who always delete their stories from the server a few hours after posting them, for some reason, so I’ll just post the whole thing:

LABOUR MINISTER Waqar Ahmad Shah on Monday issued notice to the LML management seeking explanation why not lock-out at its Panki unit should be declared illegal. The minister also sought an explanation from the management why the plant was closed.

The notice, which was issued on Saturday, has solicited an explanation from the LML management within a week. “If the management fails to give any satisfactory reply by Friday then the lock-out will be declared illegal.”

Talking to Hindustan Times on telephone, the labour minister said, “The extreme step of sending notice has been taken after undue delay by the LML management in re-opening its unit.”

He added that earlier the LML management had informed about the efforts being made by it for the re-opening of the plant, therefore some grace period was given to the management.

But, even after passage of the adequate time, no convincing reply had come from the management about ending the lockout, added Shah.
“Notice has been issued to the LML management on Saturday last and if no convincing reply is given then action will be taken by the State Government as per law,” asserted Shah.

The minister also said that on Sunday last a delegation of the LML Employees’ Union had come to meet him. “I assured members of the delegation that all due care will be taken about the welfare of employees. I also assured then about the payment of their pending dues,” added Shah.

However, company director RK Srivastav said that the company had not received any notice from the minister. “If any notice is served to the company then its reply will be sent, added Srivastav.

He added that the LML management wanted to restart the unit and a meeting with vendors of the company had also taken place on October 22 last.

So what does that mean for LML and the Star/Stella/Belladonna? Who knows. Probably not much, but we’ll watch closely for more news on Sunday.

Brudeli’s leaning three-wheeled motorcycle

Gizmag reports that the Brudeli 625L, a Norwegian-designed and KTM-powered leaning three-wheeled motorcycle, will start production in 2007. The article is correct that Piaggio’s MP3 platform is the only tilting three-wheeler in production, but they neglect to mention that a 400cc version is expected soon, and the similar (and sportier) 500cc Gilera Fire will be on the market before the Brudeli. Interesting that the Brudeli’s wheels are so far apart, it seems like that would reduce the “motorcycleness” of the riding experience, but it’s probably a hoot for off-road riding.

OMG WTF a scooter, golly!

I often wonder what kind of freak, in this day and age, writes to “Personality Parade” and then waits three months to maybe find out “what Catherine Oxenburg has been up to lately.” It’s even more bizarre when a newspaper columnist, presumably writing his story on a computer with internet access, rants on a subject without bothering to do any research at all, imploring his readers to “help him out,” rather than do ten seconds of clicking and typing. I guess that trick helped Bob Greene spew out five columns a week for one hundred years without ever once saying anything interesting.

Vectrix to debut in Milan, manufacture in Poland

It seems like ages (and it has) since we last heard about the Vectrix, the electric scooter with the power of a 400cc gas scooter. Now, Treehugger reports Vectrix’ first production model will be on display at the Milan show and available soon. Vectrix has built 50 units at their Massachussets plant (capacity 12,000 units/year) and is preparing their facility in Wroclaw, Poland (capacity 38,000 units/year) to start production before the end of the year. (Thanks to Mr. Maddox.)