Indian news has been closely following the news of LML’s return. Indian station CNBC-TV18 interviewed LML Vice President RK Srivastava, who made it clear Piaggio is not involved in the recovery. DNA India had a bit more detail, but not much, a few days after the original announcement. The loudest chatter came from several Indian investment experts, who warned against investment in LML, reminding us that they were, lest we forget, losing money for years before the lockout and a speedy return to profit is unlikely.
Category: Manufacturers
Honda SH300i to US?
The Scooter Scoop finds a ray of hope that we might see the big-wheeled, powerful Honda SH300i in the US. Maybe. Eventually. Here’s hopin’!
VespaUSA, the internets, and missed opportunities
Ex-Vespa-blogger Crystal Waters points out at Girlbike that even the marketing community has picked up on Piaggio’s failure to support the official Vespa blogs. ClickZ’s headline, (“Two Years After Launching Brand Blogs, Vespa Forgets Them,”) is misleading, they were forgotten about ten minutes after CooperKatz patted themselves on the back for inventing the idea. Still, even though both blogs were frozen in time with a depressing lead post about Vespa’s lack of enthusiasm, the VespaUSA site linked to them until yesterday (presumably the links were removed as a result of the ClickZ story).
Another punchline comes from a VespaUSA visitor who requested a catalog online and waited three months for it to arrive. As of today (January 3, 2007), the VespaUSA site launches a pre-Christmas promotion popup page. The front page features four “news” stories, two dating from June 2006 and at least one (possibly two, it’s unclear) featuring an expired promotion. Neither PiaggioUSA nor VespaUSA’s site mention a 2007 lineup, or the most-anticipated scooter of 2007, the MP3 (which amazingly remains without a name for the American market). One has to imagine that the majority of hits to a motorcycle manufacturer website in January are going to be people looking for new model info.
Canadian Scooter Corp. announced their 2007 Vespa/Piaggio lineup in mid-December (featuring the MP3, but no Vespa S!), but their site is also woefully out of date, featuring “news” from May 2006 and nothing about the new models.
If Piaggio as a corporation doesn’t have the reaction time or resources to keep their own sites up to date, (simply a fact of life for some bureaucratic corporations), the two Vespa blogs were a perfect way to spread information –on their terms–in a more timely manner. That’s why it’s even more depressing to see that they couldn’t muster the little effort required to communicate with their own (volunteer!) bloggers. With so many scooter bloggers, “official” and otherwise, doing their work for them, you’d think PiaggioUSA would be able to capitalize on their own hype, rather than abandoning every initiative they start. Once again, I ask, what the hell do Vespa’s marketing people (in-house and at CooperKatz) do all day? There’s very little evidence of marketing at the national level, in the past year they mustered nothing but an occasional PR-fluff newspaper story, the “Open Letter to Mayors,” the Vespetition (their master opus, maybe a week’s worth of work) and a handful of ads in national scooter magazines. Meanwhile, they’re awarding dealerships to anyone who asks, so they can say their “sales” are up. Perhaps their “marketing” is all at the dealer level?
LML back in February
It’s Christmas in… um… late December: citing “large export orders for two-wheelers” among other factors, LML announced production of scooters and autorickshaws will restart in 2 months, hopefully ending nearly a year of labor strife, legal wrangling, government meddling, threats of self-immolation, and general whining. Those export-only two-wheelers are presumably the LML Star, Genuine Stella, and New Zealand-model Belladona, making LML the only worldwide manufacturer of Vespa-style steel-bodied manual-transmission scooters. It’s unclear, but possible the autorickshaws are being built under contract for Bajaj. Thanks, M5 for keeping an eye on the BBS for me.
IAAD/Yamaha concept scooters
Some really interesting Yamaha concept scooters designed by students at the Istituto d’Arte Applicata e Design in Turin. (The names, “Street Player” and “Ploof” were created through a similar project involving Kymco and a third-grader in Atlanta.) Thanks to Mad Man Maddox, who sent this in October, whoops!
100,000th Vespa of 2006
At 12:30pm on Tuesday, December 19, a red Vespa GTS 250, the 100,000th Vespa of 2006, rolled off the Piaggio assembly line, a production milestone not reached since 1990. Vespa production topped 50,000 in 2004, and reached 87,000 in 2005, so Vespa production has doubled in two years. Piaggio chairman/CEO Roberto Colaninno came down to the line for the celebration, and announced the company will donate one Euro for each Vespa sold in 2006 and 2007 to the Italian multiple sclerosis association
Vespa Christmas tree hauler
If you ever needed motivation to always carry extra Bungees, Steve Williams from Scooter in the Sticks brought home a 5-foot-tall Fraser fir tree on the back of his Vespa LX150. Awesome!
News bits
Sorry, we’ve still been a bit under the weather and busy with the impending holidays, but here are some stories from the last week to keep you up to date:
- Seinfeld star (and model for illnoise’s current hairstyle) Jason Alexander is getting around Australia on a Vespa.
- Autoblog makes a corny joke about AMCA’s bazooka Vespa with the inevitable comment that, being French, the gun should point backwards.
- There are hundreds of online shops selling electric bikes and scooters, but finally one man, Rich Sathoff of Raleigh, NC, had the idea to actually learn to repair them.
- Despite being indicted in a huge financial scandal last week and facing more than four years in prison, Piaggio boss Roberto Colaninno met with Italy’s prime minister yesterday, and is expected to bid for control of Italian airline Alitalia in January. Only in Italy. (Note: we could be totally misinterpreting that poorly-translated press release).
- Rumors of the death of the Indian scooter market have been exaggerated. Honda’s Indian subsidary is raising scooter production 20% after reports that Bajaj is developing new scooters. Analysts predict Indian makers will introduce as many as 60 new two-wheeler models in 2007, despite the indroduction of Tata Motors well-hyped Rs 1-lakh (US$2,250) automobile. Bajaj, meanwhile, has raised prices on all models other than the Pulsar by a whopping Rs500 (US$11).
- Speaking of the Pulsar, the Bajaj motorcycle was reported to be the first motorcycle to complete the Carrerra Pan Americana, a seven-day, 3000km race across Mexico. This was the first year motorcycles were invited to participate, though the English-language site for the event lists no rules or results for motorcycles.
- Back to India, motoring magazine Top Gear has named the 165cc Kinetic Blaze “‘Two-wheeler design of the year.” Never mind that Italjet designed it several years ago–to be fair, Kinetic has made some improvements to the original.
Gizmag on the GP800, electric MP3 in works
Gizmag has a look at the new 850cc Gilera GP 800, the first scooter to ever round down its displacement. It reads a bit like a reworded press release, giving the impression they haven’t ridden it either, but it’s fair to predict it’s going to be a pretty exciting ride. To be honest, the thing that excites me most about it is that demand may eventually force Piaggio to bring the Gilera brand to the U.S., which would make the Gilera Runner finally available here.
Earlier last week, Gizmag also reported that Vectrix is developing an electric version of the 3-wheeled MP3under license from Piaggio.
MP3 tricks
Patrick sent us these photos of some extreme Piaggio MP3 stoppie and knee-dragging action on a french site. Good stuff.
Colaninno: 4 years in jail for role in scandal
Powersports Business online reports today that an Italian court has convicted Piaggio & C. SpA Chairman and CEO Roberto Colaninno for illegal handling of the bankruptcy of a real estate and hotel company. Colannino has been sentenced to more than 4 years of jail time, subject to appeal. Two other Italian bankers were also convicted and sentenced. Colaninno remains in his post at Piaggio. We’ll certainly have more details on this as it becomes more clear.
Schwinn Scooters sales grow
Powersports Business magazine reported in November that Schwinn scooter sales rose 440% in 2006, adding 200 new dealers. Not terribly surprising, since as far as we can tell, most powersports dealers first became aware of Scwhinn’s entry into the scooter market at the Indianapolis Dealer Expo in February, 2006, around the same time 2strokebuzz discovered that discovered TNG Scooters’ parent CMSI had filed suit against Schwinn parent Pacific Cycle. In a story in the December 4 Powersports Business, Schwinn Motor Sports VP George Simone claims that Schwinn’s name recognition and corporate backing is resulting in further growth — even in the face of the reputation of Chinese scooters, market saturation, the leveling-off of the scooter market, and higher gas prices — with more than 2,500 units sold per year. The company is aiming for 500 dealers and 5000 bikes sold in 2007.
New Vespa/Piaggio assistance number
PiaggioUSA has changed their roadside assistance phone number for registered Vespa, Piaggio X9 and Piaggio BV500 owners. The new number is 866-232-0083.
L-Series: a bit more info
The Scooterscoop has translated a translation of a translation of a press release about CMSI/Lambretta Laboratories’ “L-Series” modern Lambretta.
ArgoUSA’s AR150-18
After admin SE’s tease on the ScooterBBS yesterday promising a “New Bajaj line,” ArgoUSA unveiled their new scooter today. It’s decidedly not a Bajaj, but the “AR150-18,” another presumably-Chinese-made Vino clone, mostly indiscernable from the TNG Milano, Schwinn Graduate, Baron 150VLA, and a dozen other generic scooters already on the market (although it does have front-and-rear disc brakes, and a Yamaha-manufactured engine). Saddled with a generic name and a $2500 MSRP (same as the Baron, more than the Schwinn or TNG) the AR150-18 is probably a decent scooter, but too little, too late to get the scootering world talking about ArgoUSA again, especially when you consider how few scooter dealers will be interested in adding yet another 150cc Vino clone to their lineup. The site promises “more models coming soon,” hopefully they’re a little more exciting. (Thanks for the tip, Professor Matthew)