Category: Manufacturers

Buddies are Go!

POCbuddy2The new Buddy 125 (the US-market version of the PGO Bubu) has arrived at most Genuine Scooter dealers. Phil from Pride of Cleveland Scooters took this photo (click to enlarge) on the interstate today and says:

it’s about 19 miles from my house to the shop when you take the freeway. It’s about 12 Miles of actual 65+ mph traffic. It wasn’t passing anything but the folks in the right lane, but it did do it and with only a handful of miles on the odometer and a long way from being broken in.

(Note that in most states, 125cc scooters are not permitted on the interstate, nor is it a good idea to take a photo from a scooter travelling at interstate speed). The speedo is likely exaggerating quite a bit, but we’ve heard from test-riders that they’re suprisingly fast, and “look cooler in person.” They’re also smaller than most 125cc scooters (Phil calls it “a 125 in a 50cc frame”), so if you’re perhaps slight-of-build and looking for a small-but-fast scooter, the Buddy is worth checking out, especially at $2500 MSRP. If it’s not your bag, the 50cc Buddy and the 50cc Black Cat are coming soon, and Genuine is likely to add new models later this summer.

Rahul Bajaj backed for Indian government seat.

Rahul BajajDNA – India reports that Rajul Bajaj has been backed by a coalition of parties for a vacant seat on the Rajya Sabha, the upper legislative house of the Indian government (roughly parallel to the U.S. Senate). Rahul Bajaj is the grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj, a close friend of Ghandi who was active in the fight for Indian independence. Jamnalal Bajaj founded the Bajaj group of companies in the ’30s. Rahul Bajaj became CEO of Bajaj in 1968, passing the title to his son Rajiv in April 2004. Rahul was ranked the 20th richest person in India in 2005, even after the Bajaj empire was split between Rahul and his brother Shishir Bajaj.

What’s going on with Italjet?

Since our report last night about the return of the Velocifero, in which we reported that ItaljetUSA.com was going through a domain name transfer, several other long-dormant Italjet sites, all working last night (Italjet.com, Italjet.it, and Australian importer ItalScooter), have also been replaced with domain transfer announcements. Is Italjet gearing up to market the Kinetic-manufactured scooters internationally? Will the Kinetic Italiano scooters bear an “Italjet” badge? Who will be the U.S. importer? Will they get it right this time?

Velocifero will return to US

2000 VelociferoKinetic Engineering announced today that the Velocifero, the second in its line of license-built Italjet scooters, will debut soon. What comes as a fairly huge surprise is that the Kinetic Velocifero will be “exclusively manufactured for exports to (the) U.S.” ItaljetUSA has been dormant for a few years, and it’s unclear who’s running the show. The italjetusa.com site appears to be changing hands (or at least hosts), so watch it closely for more info. (a “whois” search revealed nothing). Kinetic chairman Arun Firodia was quoted in a release as saying “We plan to export 20,000-30,000 scooters in a year. Each vehicle’s cost is around $500-$600.” (that’s their cost, not yours, settle down)

Can Kinetic sell up to three times as many scooters in the U.S. as Vespa? Can they do it with a 50cc Indian-manufactured scooter that debuted here more than ten years ago? The Velocifero design was highly regarded when it came out, and aesthetically it holds up well. Quality was respectable, but supply of vehicles and parts,–and service support–was dismal. Italjet prices were comparable to similar Vespas and Aprilias. Both Italjet and ItaljetUSA seemed dormant by early 2003 (the Italian site is frozen in time in early 2002–by which time the Velocifero had been discontinued), but the Italjet announced the Kinetic deal late in 2004. If Italjet USA hopes to sell that many scooters, they’ll need all cylinders firing: advertising, sales, service, parts, quality, and a price lower than the $3200 they were asking in 2000. Adding the Dragster to the U.S. lineup sure wouldn’t hurt, either.

This review of a prototype Kinetic Velocifero indicates that it maintains the look and steel body of the Italian version (a 2000 Italjet model is pictured above), but calls the 50cc 2-stroke engine “hopelessly underpowered.” The Velocifero, along with the other six scooters in the “Italiano” family, is to be manufactured at its Pithampur plant in Madhya Pradesh. The first of these models, the Blaze, was released in India a couple months ago, to a good amount of fanfare, and is selling about 10,000 units a month. In a world full of respected brands selling their names to Asian companies, this may be one of the few cases where the final product earns more respect than the original.

LML labor unrest escalates again

As 2500 locked-out LML employees tried to collect their long-disputed temporary checks today, they discovered that LML had terminated 12 employees active in the union, including union president Jai Prakash Pandey and general secretary Suresh Singh. In the ensuing chaos, the enraged and chanting employees did not collect their checks, and union officials, including Pandey, were refused permission to enter the factory to meet with management. Two labor inspectors were present as specified by the original agreement, but were apparently unable to quell the masses or mediate any discussion. As we suggested last week, if you have your heart set on a Genuine Stella, don’t wait for the next batch to come in.