Category: Scooter News

It’s about TIME…

Chad Schaefer (months ago) passed along five great stories from TIME Magazine’s newly-available-online archives. They were decades-old to begin with, so you’ll forgive the delay. Here are some excerpts, click the title to see the full stories.

Speed

TIME, October 17, 1955
…Italian motor-scooter enthusiasts, often harshly criticized for their desire to dominate the road, were still glowing at [79-year-old Pius XII’s] understanding words to a group of Vespa riders: “Those who complain of your noise, do they ever think that your speed may take you to church in time for Mass, or that you may be rushing a sick person to the hospital? Be patient with those who abuse you.”…

Rocks Round the Clock

TIME, August 14, 1964
… Suddenly, the kids began ranging through town in packs, stopping traffic, banging on cars, chanting (“Up the Mods”), looking for trouble. They raided cafes for dishes and glasses to throw, knives and forks to brandish, chased each other up the beaches and down the streets under a hail of rocks and crockery. On the promenade, herds of noisy Rocker motorcycles roared incessantly; buzzing them in hand-to-handlebar combat were enough Mod motor scooters to hold mass Vespa services.…

Fuzz with a Buzz

TIME, January 13, 1967
…the New York police have found a way to let one man cover the ground of five: the motor scooter. Police Commissioner Howard R. Leary has already checked out 575 cops on 80 Vespas and Lambrettas. And he has just asked for funds to buy 300 more. Eventually, he wants all 2,000 patrolmen to mount up…

Drunk astronauts and cosmonauts on scooters in Paris

(no original title) TIME, June 13, 1969
…the next morning [U.S. Astronaut] McDivitt hustled out to the Air Show, where he and fellow Apollo 9 Crewmen David Scott and Russell Schweiclcart showed Cosmonauts Vladimir Shakalov and Alexei Yeliseyev around the American exhibit. The proceedings started somewhat stiffly; then a bottle of bonded bourbon was broken out and things began to loosen up. By the time the revelers reached the Russian exhibit with its plentiful stock of vodka, they were saluting everything from Snoopy to space medicine. Toasted to a light crisp, the space travelers finally piled onto their Vespas and scooted back to the American pavilion—two hours late for their ensuing engagement.…

Victim of Affluence

TIME, February 7, 1972
…In 1970. only 55,000 Lambrettas were sold compared with 180,000 a decade earlier. Faced with the realities of a stronger economy, the late Innocenti’s son and nephew, who now run his company, have stopped production of the Lambretta in Italy but will keep a parts depot. They are arranging a deal with the Indian government and a Bombay company to move Lambretta production to India beginning in 1974…

Benelli in trouble?

According to motoblog.it, Benelli sales have been lower than expected worldwide ((Google machine translation). Qiang Jiang, who bought the marque a few years ago, is threatening to close what’s left of Benelli’s Italian-based production and assembly facilities. American Benelli importer Power Sports Factory gave 2strokebuzz an Andretti 150XT (“Velvet” in Europe) to test, you may remember I crashed it in the snow on its maiden voyage, but I’ve put some miles on it lately and it’s a good bike, look for a review (finally!) soon. Surely a good review on a rinky-dink American scooter blog will immediately turn things around for QJ and Benelli.

PiaggioUSA’s “Test Ride”

PiaggioUSA is targeting scooter-curious customers with a 12-month “test ride” on Piaggio and Vespa scooters. While the deal isn’t entirely unreasonable, the name and description of the promotion are a bit of a stretch, especially “your dealer will buy it back,” which implies that the dealer will refund the cost of the scooter.

Here’s how it works: You buy the scooter with 10% down and a three-year loan from Sheffield Financial. After 12 months, if you’re current on the loan and don’t like the bike, the dealer will take over your loan and take back the scooter. As 2SB reader Pete Selkowe points out, you’re paying 43% of the MSRP, and none of that is being refunded to you. So you pay almost half the MSRP of a scooter to ride it for a year, if you don’t like it, the dealer’s stuck making your payments until they can sell it used. If the dealer can sell it used for more than what you owe, they make some cash.

There’s nothing reprehensible about it, it’s basically the same thinking as any automobile lease. It’s just not a good deal for most consumers, or the dealer (but good for PiaggioUSA and their financing company). If you have the resources to buy a new Vespa with cash (instead of with an expensive loan), and decide not to keep it, you could almost surely sell it privately a year later and get a better deal. If you can’t buy with cash, you could certainly secure a better loan elsewhere. The line “Customer is responsible for excess wear and mileage over 4,000 miles at $0.10 /mile” is also troubling, and if comprehensive insurance isn’t required for loan approval, you’d certainly want it, as with any financing deal (lest you’re still making payments three years after your scooter is stolen).

I’m very interested what dealers think about this. When I saw it, my first thought was “PIaggioUSA finally realizes they’ve oversaturated a shrinking market, and they’re trying to unload as many bikes as possible before they bail out of the U.S. in 11 months.” If I’m not mistaken, dealers do not get a cut of financing, so they’re just making their regular dealer margin, with the added risk of having to take it back and sell it at enough of a profit to cover two years of loan payments (probably at a reduced rate, but still…). Hopefully there are some sort of incentives to make it worth the dealers’ trouble, or maybe dealers hope it will lure customers to their shops, whom they can then talk out of the “test ride” deal.

ScooterworksUSA and Scooterworks Chicago

There’s been some confusion and angst lately on the Chicago lists about changes at Scooterworks and parts availability. Until recently, both the local dealership (and its service department) AND the catalog internet/mail-order business were located on Damen Avenue and called “Scooterworks USA.” Starting last month, the parts business, Scooterworks USA has moved to a new location on the West Side, and the dealership, still on Damen, has been separated from the parts business and christened Scooterworks Chicago (note the separate websites, as well).

Scooterworks Chicago will stock the general supply of parts, gear, and accessories typical to any good scooter shop, but will no longer sell the full lineup of items available from Scooterworks USA.

Sadly, Scooterworks USA is not accessible to retail customers, so local scooterists will not be able to order in person, or pick up orders placed by phone or online. This was very disappointing news to Chicago scooterists spoiled with 6-day-a-week access to just about any imaginable scooter part. To lessen the blow, ScooterworksUSA is temporarily offering free shipping for all Chicago orders over $35 until September 31, 2009:

Attention: Chicagoland Scooterworks customers
As many of you know, we have moved our warehouse across town from our dealership, Scooterworks Chicago. We are in the process of making Scooterworks Chicago one of the greatest scooter shops in the country.
We are unfortunately not able to stock all of our parts at our dealership. We know this is an inconvenience to our local customers, and for that we apologize. So to help everyone get through the 2009 riding season we are offering all Chicagoland customers FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $35 through September 31, 2009.
Thanks,
Scooterworks Staff

As always, orders placed before 2pm ship same day, and Scooterworks generally offers free shipping on orders over $100.

Vespa Vintage 2009 catalog

Piaggio’s latest Vespa Vintage catalog is available online. The PDF download doesn’t seem to work, but you can peruse it in Flash. The first “Vespa Vintage” catalog came out around the same time Piaggio returned to the U.S., and sent many Vespaphiles running to their local VVRS (remember those?) expecting to find some of the lovingly depicted reproductions of rare bits actually in stock. The new catalog (have there been any in between? Is this a once-a-decade thing?) seems a little less, well, imaginary, and VespaUSA’s parts department has improved (a bit) since 2000, so now’s your chance to score that Piaggio-approved GS spare tire gas tank.

Powersports Mail-Order Mega-Warehouse Condescends To Scooterists *UPDATED*

While perusing the local craigslist today I came across a post (which I dutifully tagged as spam) announcing the new scooter oriented online shop by traditional powersports mail-order powerhouse Dennis Kirk. Their new site is called dkscooters.com and offers accessories and gear for the scooter owner. For many years the Rush City, MN based retailer has had excellent catalogs aimed at several powersports divisions from off-road to metric cruisers. Now in the digital age they’ve made a separate website to group the items that would be more likely purchased by scooterists. They have covers, locks, jackets and even one token brand of 2 stroke oil. But when looking in the top category on their left-hand menu, helmets, I found it lacking. Not that they didn’t have my preferred brand or that they didn’t have a Valentino Rossi replica lid, but that of the 163 options there wasn’t a full-face helmet to be found. Do scooterists not deserve the same protection offered to other power-two-wheel enthusiasts? Do they really think that scooters are so harmless that no one needs the protection available to a cruiser pilot? Or is this completely sensible and the only question is why the website isn’t entirely pink with bunnies around the border?

Write this post off as a narrow minded rant if you’d like. Dennis Kirk will probably have no problem with the free advertisement (normally I’m a big fan and until now shopped their at least once a year). And it could be said that you shouldn’t even buy a helmet online without trying it on first, and you should buy it from the local shop where you tried it on. The behavior of embracing and marginalizing scooters at the same time just seems a bit insulting.

UPDATE: Dealer News reports on the news of the DK online store for scooters. The article gets some interesting comments from a few of the prime movers in the scooter commerce arena. LINK

Can YOU Beat Piaggio To An Electric Vespa?

Jeb from Soundspeed Scooters in Seattle dropped a line to say their electric vintage Vespa conversion kit is now available to the general public. The price tag isn’t for the weak of heart but it has a few things going for it. First it’s the only way to get a good looking electric scooter. Second is that the price is over half made up of the new lighter Lithium battery pack. Hopefully advances in technology can drive this price down in the future. But most importantly it’s stated to come with directions. I’m sure people have run in to DIY projects about electric motorcycles with vague descriptions of the accumulation and assembly of parts. This kit is supposed to fit any largeframe Vespa. While Piaggio has made (and burried) the Zip and Zip in the past and has promised a hybrid vehicle to be coming soon, it’s not here yet. Any tree huggers up for taking the situation into their own hands?

In Memory of Marshall Tito: A Scooter Contest

To celebrate the upcoming officially recognized birthday of Josip Broz Tito I would like to offer the opportunity for one lucky trainspotter to win a fantastic Scootmoto decal. The first person to identify the model scooter displayed at 1:07 of this BBC video will win this prize. Don’t put links in your response below just the make and model and I’ll ‘fact check’. (If the feed goes dead here’s the direct link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8032132.stm )

Disclaimer: Not an official contest. Subject to Bb pulling the post and replacing it with a helmet review. But I swear I’ll send one to the first lucky winner, as soon as I get around to it. -bgk

TSR Vespa smallframe disc brake in the works

tsrdisckit4In the 2strokebuzz tradition of finding scooter news and putting it under a tarp in the garage, we bring you month old news of a new Vespa smallframe disc brake system in the works that uses the traditional smallframe fork. The Scooter Republic is an outfit based in Vietnam that has been stealthily producing some reproduction and bespoke parts like SS90 replicas and some crazy exhausts for the smallframe range. When contacted for more information regarding the new smallie stoppers, a representative from TSR said the unit is in the late prototype stage and heading for production. The project is advanced to the point where they are currently accepting deposits on the first round of production. Now there appears to be an option for smallframe enthusiasts to get modern stopping power without resorting to the use of a PK fork. One caveat for the unit shown and to be produced first is that it is suited for the older style V90/V50 rim. While the numbers of riders with these wheels are smaller it is a great look and it’s possible to convert a scooter with the new style hubs and rims to the old pressed steel hubs. Further news revealed the addition of an anti-dive solution as well as a prototype for the newer style rims. Contact TSR by emailing: info AT tsr DOT vn. The tsr.vn website doesn’t give any additional information beyond a cool scooter cartoon but it’s worth the price of the click.

LML launches 4T “Stella” in India

LML has apparently launched their 4-stroke “NV” (known to us as the Genuine Stella) in the Indian markets of Delhi and Ghaziabad. This Indian-market version surely varies to some degree from the DOT/EPA/CARB-approved version scheduled to come to the U.S. in early 2010, it’s good to read more about it. Sadly, this story seems to have many factual errors, such as the claim that it’s branded as a “Vespa,” or listing every country besides the U.S. as “Stella” territory. (It’s also a safe bet this is a third-generation re-write of an LML press release, and the bike’s not actually on the market yet) Two interesting numbers: They’re claiming almost 130 mpg, and an MSRP of $851 for the deluxe version. Genuine suggested 120mpg, so that’s maybe not far off, but the price is rather hard to believe. Genuine’s surely marking them up a good deal to make it worth their while, but we’d like to think it’s not that much.

Also good to see that the Indian scooter market is bouncing back a bit. Remember, we’ve been predicting a “retro” Bajaj for 2010, though if LML is only selling 1500 scooters a year domestically (and only 5000 worldwide), maybe India’s not ready yet. (Thanks for the link, Pete Selkowe!)

The New Stella, unveiled

newstella1
For more than a year, rumors have been circulating about a new 4-stroke version of Genuine Scooter Company’s Stella motorscooter. Genuine confirmed the model a few months ago, but has otherwise been very quiet about the project. This week, Genuine allowed 2strokebuzz a quick look at a “New Stella” prototype (and a ride!) just before it was sent for CARB testing in California.
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