Vespa dealers: never, never, lend a bike to your advertising agency for their mini-St. Patrick’s day parade, especially if it’s co-sponsored by the brewery next door. (Thanks David, via Modern Vespa.)
Category: Multimedia
Vanslam’s floormat upgrade
Sure, you could install your Vespa LX floormats the easy way…
2/3rds Mod Cons?
Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are reuniting the Jam for a tour in May. No word from Paul Weller, who might prove useful in such a venture, but Sammy Hagar is presumably available this summer. Thanks, Matty!)
2007 Dealer Expo: Photo Gallery
Here are our photos from the 2007 Dealer Expo. If you’re a 2sb member, you can log in with your user ID/password to leave comments and rate photos (it finally works). Enjoy, and look for our story soon!
More Calendars (the old kind)
sctrcst
The vowel-less sctrcst.com (assumedly pronounced “scootercast”) is a new scooter podcast by Dave in (?) Colorado. I haven’t listened yet, but it sounds promising and I’ll by syncing it to the ol’ iPod tonight. Looks like the current episode is mostly about Cincinnati, with a little support from the 2strokebuzz news network.
Chicago International Motorcycle Show 2007
You’ll hopefully forgive 2strokebuzz if coverage of the 2007 Cycle World International Motorcycle show is a little scaled back this year. The truth is, very little has changed from year to year. Each year there are fewer surprises, less swag, and fewer perks (the bus service to the CTA parking lot was cancelled this year, brrr.), while parking, concessions, and admission (at least seem to) get more expensive. Probably that’s why Triumph didn’t appear for the second year in a row, and why Kymco, CMSI, and Genuine rarely bother with these shows.
On top of that, we had a head start on new 2007 models, thanks to the Milan EIMCA show, and next weekend I’m attending the Indianapolis Dealer Expo (my first trip), which promises to be a bit more exciting. But out of a sense of duty, and because Ryan was driving, I decided to once again trek through the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, to see what there was to see. Which wasn’t much, really.
Continue reading “Chicago International Motorcycle Show 2007”
La Vespa se gustan Concha
The Scooter Scoop posted this video with the headline “I Love Baseball,” but I’m pretty sure she’s saying “Vespa,” so I think Steve was joking. The sixties-via-eighties (or is it fifties-via-seventies?) Chroma Key majesty is something to behold. For a moment, I thought it was a “winter” version of my favorite song, but it turns out it’s “Vespa, Vespa,” by Concha Velasco, a Spanish actress who’s starred in over a hundred films and television shows, including two currently in production.
Rockin’ with the J.C. Penney Mods
NYC freeform radio station WFMU has unearthed a long-forgotten fad of the sixties: the “corporate musical.” One such musical, J.C. Penney’s “Spirit of 66,” featured a tribute to our well-dressed, pill-popping, basement-club-dwelling friends across the Atlantic: Rockin’ with the Mods. Crazy. (Thanks, Coudal.)
BBC America goes mod
BBC America unveiled a new identity this week, designed by mOcean. The new logo is a modified “mod target,” aka “Royal Air Force rondel,” let’s hope they have better luck with that than Lambretta Clothing. A new series of channel IDs include this one, featuring a euro-spec Vespa P200E (right-click to download) parked at a biker bar. (Thanks, Steve. Video and still: mOcean.)
“No Same Way”
The news is Ruckus-heavy this week. Here’s an amazingly-silly ad for the Honda Zoomer (the Ruckus’ Japanese-market name), by motion graphics company Le Pivot.
Kyle visits SIP
If you’re reading this site, you’re probably the type of person that happily gives up a day of your European vacation to hunt down the local scooter shops. Chicago scooterist Kyle Hart is too, but he was lucky enough to visit Augsburg, Germany, where the “local shop” is S.I.P.. Instead of the usual modern Piaggio dealer who hasn’t seen a GS in twenty years, or repairman’s shed full of rotting scooter corpses, S.I.P. is a huge, modern shop catering to an international crowd of vintage and modern scooter racers and customizers, and judging by Kyle’s great photos, it’s an exciting place to visit.
Walking Scooter
Also from Ryan: A clip of a presumably home-made scooter with feet instead of wheels. From the look and sound of it, it’s from the Japanese version of Max-X
Vespa Gringo
In the late 1990s, Ryan Bastianelli visited a Vespa/Bajaj dealer in Costa Rica and saw the four-stroke Chetak. The historic moment was captured in the film Vespa Gringo. It’s the Citizen Kane of Central American Scooter dealer videos. Be sure to check out Ryan’s other films, including Deer Feeding in Chicago (2006) and I am hot on Oprah (1993).
UPDATE 2011: Vespa Gringo is back online!
VW bus graphics bonanza
Speaking of VWs (see below), here’s an amazing gallery of VW Bus graphics. Not directly scooter-related, but there are some amazing Vespa paint scheme ideas in there. (Via my employer and Draplin.)