I’ll ruin the ending and tell you the Vespa doesn’t win, but it puts up a hell of a fight and comes damn close.
Category: Video
Vespa Racing in Italy
Some nicely-shot footage of Vintage Vespa racing in Italy. (The Vespas are vintage, not the footage). (Thanks, Phil “Pickupthe” Pace.)
Vespalizzatevi
A must-see from motoblog.it: A beautiful stop-motion animation of the history of the Vespa featuring toys, illustrations, and vintage posters and photographs.
Can an Adly pull a pop-up camper?
If the Lambretta tent video we posted a few months ago was inspiring, but a tent just isn’t “all-mod-cons” enough for you, check out this video from the same source (Britsh Pathe Archives): a Lambretta towing a pop-up camper. I can’t imagine that it was wise to load a 150 or 175cc engine, even when factory-fresh, with a pop-up camper AND a boat AND gear AND a pillion passenger AND a sidecar with a child. (Thanks, Dan Epstein, who sent this so long ago he surely forgot about it.)
Julie Plug’s “Blue Sky Propeller”
Once again, YouTube (via John Rana) serves up a great music video that slipped by unnoticed (to us anyway) a few years ago. Julie Plug (on MySpace) is a Bay Area band influenced by Britpop and the Sundays. Their 2003 “Blue Sky Propeller” video is pretty much the Filipino-American “Lloyd, I’m ready to be Heartbroken”, only a few years older and more scooter-ific. Read John’s post for more about the band.
Vicious Cycles
Dave McCabe has long been searching for a short film he remembers seeing before Star Wars or Indiana Jones at the Polar Theater in Anchorage. He finally found it on good ol’ YouTube. Despite a resurgence in popularity in the 80s, Vicious Cycles was actually made in 1969. It’s a goofy live-action stop-motion animated film featuring the grungy Vicious Cycles MC facing off against the bowler-hat-clad Mild Ones Scooter Club. If nothing else, it proves the go-to newspaper headline “Mild Ones” (drink!) was already an old joke in 1969. It’s fantastic and authentic, right down to the squeaky Vespa drum brake sound. Stick around ’til the end for a Coke ad featuring vintage motorcycles and a public service announcement about loud pipes.
Vespa wallride!
Wallriding a pool on a Vespa. Awesome, when I was 16, most skateboarders could barely do that, so I’m betting we’ll see a Vespa 360 Air soon. Via Sctrcst (I’m next weeks’ guest!), via Honky Tonk Dragon, via
ScooterDave (you saw it here last!).
Three vintage Vespa commercials
Three fantastic old Vespa commercials in one YouTube video. The “beefeater” spot (first) is so Austin Powers that it seems like it couldn’t really be from that era, but actually a 90s parody of Swinging London. It’s amazing that in 15 years of Vespa nerdery, I’ve never seen the first two commercials, YouTube never gets boring.
Shortest parade… ever
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.)
Vanslam’s floormat upgrade
Sure, you could install your Vespa LX floormats the easy way…
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.
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.
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!