Category: Genuine (LML/PGO)

Buddy: Out Vespa-ing Vespa?

The LA Times finally said today what we’ve all been thinking: The Buddy is kicking the Vespa’s ass lately. Sure, Vespas are more glamorous, and have a 60-year history at the top of the scooter industry, but Vespa abandoned their ideals of economy and utility long ago, and Genuine has totally stolen their thunder by knowing the American market. Genuine found a cheap-but-reliable alternative (the PGO Bu Bu), priced it right, totally nailed the rebranding and marketing, and (most importantly) built a quality network of dealers and riders that instantly fell in love with the product and spread the word with fairly minimal advertising required.

Sure, they were also in the right place at the right time, but unlike many of the current players in the U.S. scooter market, Genuine (well, Scooterworks) has been prospering for years by knowing the market and their customers, and they’ll surely be one of the few that remain successful after this boom ends. If half the “new Stella” rumors I’ve heard are true, they’re just getting started.

Blur 3000km service

I had a Big Merchandise Announcement to make today, but instead I stayed up until 2am writing this step-by-step guide to changing the oil in your Genuine Blur 150. All 23 Blur owners in North America are totally thanking me right now. I tried to make it a little funny, so you might want to read it anyway, just to make fun of how little I know about changing the oil in a Genuine Blur 150. But stay tuned, we’ve got new t-shirts going on sale very soon.

I’ME: the next Genuine scooter?

PGO’s new fuel-injected I’ME 125 won a 2008 Taiwan Excellence Award and got some press coverage (videos below) in Taiwan, but there’s a strange lack of information about it on the internet. The Republic of China’s new emissions laws require fuel-injection, so it’s likely all of Genuine’s PGO-built 2009 models will feature EFI, (UPDATE: maybe not,) but PGO claims the I’ME is the first to pass the new “fifth stage” emissions regulations. Aesthetically, it looks like an updated Kymco Agility, sort of the Vespa LX to the Agility’s ET, if that makes any sense, which it doesn’t.

With the current drought of scooters in U.S. showrooms, it’s a safe bet Genuine would love to get their hands on the I’ME, but PGO’s likely focused on development and production of domestic-market fifth-stage-certified bikes. That should give Genuine just enough time to re-brand it, and apply for DOT homologation. In any case, we’re adding the I’ME 125 to our Genuine ’09 wish list, along with the hybrid Buddy and the return of the Blur (hopefully the 4-valve 150 version and the 200 with this cool LCD dashboard).

Modern Buddy crash data

EP Scoot tallied up the responses on the everlasting “Who’s Crashed” thread at Modern Buddy to come up with a Modern Buddy “Hurt Report” of sorts. It’s not entirely scientific, but the results are pretty interesting, especially because they confirm what most of us know but choose to ignore. Also interesting: the long-held suspicion that orange Buddies are more crash-prone holds true, though pink is surprisingly less crash-prone than black. Nice work.

100mpg 115mpg at Scooterville?

From WCCO in Minneapolis:

Bob Hedstrom’s Minneapolis store Scooterville is struggling to keep up with demand as customers brag to their friends about their gas mileage. The scooters, whose prices start at $1,800, get 100 miles to the gallon.

Bob Hedstrom is probably our second- or third-favorite scooter shop owner in the United States, and, to be fair, he’s not directly quoted as saying the Buddy gets 100mpg, but this is the fifth story this month that implies that the Buddy gets 100mpg. I like and trust Bob a lot, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that the Buddy can get 100mpg, but it certainly doesn’t get that in real-world conditions, and 80mpg is surely worth bragging about. Despite Vespa’s claims of 60mph on most of their bikes, I saw a story this morning (Link to come later) where a Vespa owner claimed to get 80mpg. Again, I just think it’s the small gas tanks, the inaccuracy of scooter odometers, and lack of careful record-keeping that convinces people they’re getting better mileage than they are. 100 miles per tank? sure, but not per gallon.

UPDATE: Here, sandwiched between two Hedstrom quotes, KARE says scooters “get anywhere from 50 to 115 miles per gallon.” WTF?

Genuine mythbusting

Genuine Blur 150 and Buddy 125 owners have had a healthy argument going on since both models were introduced: Which is quicker?. Nathaniel over at Modern Buddy did some tests and confirmed they’re pretty much even in the 100m dash. There’s still debate over which is faster, I’d argue that despite the displacement difference, they have a very similar top speed, but the Blur handles and brakes much better, with this video (the part after the G-Max commercial) as my evidence. Now for the next question, how much faster/better is the new Buddy 150?

Indian makers explore natural gas models

RedOrbit reports that LML, Bajaj, Honda, and Kinetic are all working on natural-gas powered concept bikes, possibly including dual-fuel options. Just thought we’d throw that in there with all the 210cc nuclear-powered rotary-engine automatic time-travelling Stella rumors floating around.