Zinesters Talking (Portland)

Karen Giezyng, who started the Oregon Scooter Club’s great ‘zine Kickstart has just released her new ‘zine Bumpstart. More about the new zine soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to give a heads up that she’ll be reading and telling stories from her recent trip to Italy at Zinesters Talking, next Tuesday (September 16, 2008) 6:30–7:45 p.m., in the U.S. Bank Room at Portland’s Central Library.

“Yo, Martha!”

Martha meeds DiddyAn excerpt from a Martha Stewart book:

Another entrepreneur whose intensity, curiosity, research, and devotion to quality impress me is a gentleman who first flagged me down on an East Hampton back road several years ago. I had decided to go for a ride on my turquoise Velocifero scooter and was zipping along when I heard a shout “Yo, Martha!” Across the street on his own turquoise scooter was Sean “Diddy” Combs, the rap star who used to be called Puff Daddy and then P. Diddy.

Thanks for the photo, Dawson.

Goodbye, Vespa pioneer Andre Baldet

Baldet advertisement
Famous daredevil and, for a time, England’s greatest Vespa and microcar dealer Andre Baldet passed away last week. Baldet allegedly invented the “dealer special” when he launched his customized line of “Arc-en-Ciel” Vespas with a 150cc model in 1957. The line continued through 1961 with the Vespa GS160, and possibly even into the SS180 era. By Baldet’s estimation, he sold 600 such scooters, usually with a few upgrades and a two-tone paint job achieved by spraying a second color over certain sections of the stock paint. During the same period, he became world-known for racing, daring stunts, and endurance rides featuring Vespas and microcars. He continued to sell Vespas until the early 1980s when he sold his dealerships. A great Baldet biography by John Gerber appeared in American Scooterist issue 48/49 (The GS anniversary double issue). (Image from the collection of John Gerber)

New LMLs: The Scootering story

Most of this thread is proof that Modern Vespa has eclipsed the stupidity of the BBS, but it includes scans of Scootering’s story about LML’s 4-stroke geared scooters, presumably someday to be known as the “Stella 250.” Great info there, and nice to see Scootering’stypesetting hasn’t improved in the several years since I’ve bought an issue. Peignot? Come on! England’s hatred of the French apparently doesn’t extend to shitty French typefaces.

Ford blocks publication of Mustang club calendar

This story about a Mustang Club being told by Ford that they were not allowed to publish photos of their own cars just seems like some sort of silly mix-up, but it’s probably only a matter of time before Piaggio tries the same thing. When Piaggio returned to the U.S., they sued several long-time Vespa shops, including dealers that had been around since the last Vespa invasion, for using “Vespa” in their name. They’ve also blocked several Café Press users and other folks selling Vespa merchandise. Every company has every right to defend their intellectual property, and block people from cashing in on their trademarks and copyrighted designs, but to crack down on a club of enthusiasts for publishing photographs of their own vehicles and preventing them from using a brand name to describe events or clubs is ridiculous. Sure, Harley-Davidson has lost some cash over the years to the underground biker community, but it’s that same underground biker community that’s kept their brand alive through thick and thin for a hundred years. The same could be said of Vespa enthusiasts, but in Piaggio’s never ending search for profits, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a similar crackdown soon.

Update: The matter has been resolved. Thanks, Becky! But this still doesn’t bode well for clubs and enthusiasts, I think we can expect more battles in the future.

2slowbuzz vs. American Scooterist

Sorry about the infrequent posts the last week or so, I’m trying to get issue 53 of American Scooterist to press before the holidays. If you’re a Vespa Club of America member, you should be getting issue 52 in the mail any day now, but we’re still woefully late, largely because of my busy schedule. Remember that your membership is good for four issues, however long it takes us to get them to you. If you are a subscriber, I hope you find it worth the wait, it’s a lot of work and we take great pride in its quality, if not its punctuality. We’ve got some new blood on board (thanks Pete!) but we can always use more writing/editing/production help, and if you’re in a position to advertise in American Scooterist, we’d certainly appreciate the support.

Review: A-Z of Popular Scooters and Microcars

The A-Z of Popular Scooters and Microcars, Cruising with StyleThe A-Z of Popular Scooters and Microcars, Cruising with Style, by Michael Dan
Veloce Books, 2007
Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN 9781845840884

The peak of the current “scooter boom” (surely it can’t get any bigger?) has been marked by an ever-growing number of books, each more general than the last. Most of the current scooter books are targeted at wheel-kicking neophytes, and some were clearly written by folks that have never straddled a 150cc engine. Even books targeted towards scenesters, like Colin Shattuck’s great Scooters: Red Eyes, Whitewalls & Blue Smoke have their faults; listings of events, models, and clubs are outdated soon after publication and there’s just not enough space to do justice to the diverse range of subjects covered. Few scooter books find an engaging “hook” and really focus on it, and too many books rely on fifth-hand recycled historical boilerplate, most of it simply re-hashing Piaggio’s self-scripted mythology.

On the opposite extreme, Veloce’s books are (hurrah!) written by anoraks for anoraks, and while The A-Z of Popular Scooters and Microcars, Cruising with Style perhaps isn’t quite as slick-looking as other new books on the market, it seems likely to appeal to a fanatical scooter/microcar owner or someone wishing to just skim the surface. It’s great to find a book written from first-hand personal experience. Michael Dan is a solid writer who clearly loves and respects his subject matter. He fills the book with engaging stories of his exploits in the fifties riding various tiny-wheeled contraptions. Doubling the subject matter by throwing microcars into the mix seems like a bad move, focus-wise, but this book is probably the first to explore the connections between these two “niche” vehicles, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a devotee of either who lacked (at least) a passing interest in the other, so it’s a smart combination. Dan discusses the connections in detail: not only did many companies produce microcars and scooters concurrently, there was also crossover in the transportation market and the rally scene. Microcars were also a popular upgrade for scooterists finding themselves with a larger income and/or family.

The book starts with a brief overview of its subjects, building a historical context for the machines we love and the scenes that developed around them. The next section, and the most pleasant reading, goes into more detail on several specific models, featuring photos, ephemera, and the author’s first-hand period anecdotes from fifties Britain. This section is followed by nearly 100 pages of “A-Z” listings, featuring three scooters or microcars per page with specifications and notes about each model. The listings aren’t slavishly comprehensive, but they feature a good mix of the common vs. the obscure, with scooters and microcars from around the world, from the forties to the current day.

After the listings, Dan has assembled simple but great feature: a series of timelines, sorting popular marques and models by decade. The timelines put the models and their development in a temporal context with their contemporaries, depicting booms and draughts. A photo gallery fills the remaining 25 pages, bringing the book to 256 pages, each packed tight with scooter and microcar goodness.

Veloce’s design and typography is a bit disappointing. A $60 book simply deserves a bit more care in that department. Veloce seems to follow the Scootering magazine school of jamming as much photography and text on the page as possible, using wacky angles, drop shadows, repeated images, stretched type, goofy oversized captions, and similar “corporate newsletter” design traps. A simpler, cleaner design would serve the information better. Stranger still are the shots where a scooter or car was digitally added to an idyllic landscape, surely they didn’t think they were fooling anyone? Aside from those quibbles, the printing and binding is top-quality, and most of the photography is solid. The period ephemera is tops–ads and brochures we’ve never seen before, reproduced very cleanly. The majority of the “A-Z” section features snapshots taken at swap meets and car shows. If you’re expecting big-budget Art of the Motorcycle-style portraits of hundreds of models, you’re not going to find them here, these are real-world machines in various states of repair, restoration, or decay, and the eBay-auction-style photos are actually an engaging way to present them.

A trivia-obsessed scooterist might debate a few finer points of the text, but there’s certainly nothing blatantly wrong, which can’t be said for many of the ‘scooter boom’ cash-ins on the market. Assuming that the microcar data is similarly sound, this book is perfect for a devotee of either vehicle, and a great bridge between two scenes that don’t communicate much, but share many common elements. Any vintage scooter fan won’t be disappointed with this book, the scooter information is fresh and personal, and the microcar content offers instant immersion in an unexplored, parallel world.

More info available at Veloce’s site.

17 girls, 17 scooters, 12 months

debs07.jpgI’m not sure where the extra five girls ended up (Smarch?), but The Debutantes Scooter Club calendar is back for its second year of 11×17″ cheesecake, featuring our favorite Deb, POC Michelle, as Miss November. They’re available now, $15 online or $12 in person, with 10% going to ScooterRelief.org, which (crap!) reminds me I still have a big chunk of Slaughterhouse money I keep forgetting to send to ScooterRelief.