Let’s get the DealerExpo ball rolling again (finally!) with a booth that didn’t offer many surprises, but gave us a first look in person at a few bikes we’d been hoping to see in person. The return of the Stella was of course big news to long-time scooter fans, but only one avocado model was on display at the booth shared by sister companies Genuine Scooter Co. and Scooterworks. Presumably, they sold the rest of their first small shipment since 2006.
Continue reading “Dealer Expo 2008: Genuine/Scooterworks”
Category: Scooter News
Sidam Xnovo: Another Mullet Scooter
The mullet hairstyle has been described as, ‘business in the front, party in the rear’. Similar descriptions could fit three-wheel motorcycles like the Piaggio MP3 and Can-Am Spyder. But as the hot trend seems to be two wheels in the front and one in the rear, the opposite configuration has it’s assets as well. The New Cafe Racer Society reports (linking from thebikergene.com) on the Sidam Xnovo, a three wheel scooter with two hoops in the back like the old Honda Gyro and other still made today. What sets it apart seems to be the lean capability similar to the MP3 design. Thebikergene.com has a nice gallery of naked photos showing off drawings of the mechanicals. The advantage that the rear configuration would seem to have would be additional traction. I’ve thought that the trike approach would be more useful in low grip scenarios like in snow or loose surfaces, where the MP3 style design would have no improvement in this area over a traditional scoot. Just putting an ATV style swingarm and wheels on a scooter may sound like a great idea for tearing up the snow and mud, but then one is left with a four-wheel handling feel because it can’t lean the same way a motorcycle does. This independent tilting design could increase traction, retain the power two wheeler feel and still increase stability. While I’m no big fan of the maxi scooter design, I can appreciate the technical effort a great deal. The crazy frenchman behind heavymotor.com took a couple of MBK Spirit (similar to the pre-2002 Yamaha Zuma in the USA) motors to a similar effect and it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. So you can decide for yourself which end is business and which is party when looking over the new range of mullet scooters.
TGB/Sachs at DealerExpo2008 REVISED
NOTE: I got a couple things wrong in the original story, hopefully I’ve covered all the mistakes. Apologies to Cobra Powersports for the mistakes and the delay in correcting them.
As Brooke pointed out last week, one of Dealer Expo’s biggest surprises was that TGB importer Cobra Powersports has added historic German marque Sachs to their lineup. Cobra is a solid operation with a good dealer network, and most dealers we talked to were pretty excited by the news.
Continue reading “TGB/Sachs at DealerExpo2008 REVISED”
Piaggio will not privatize
Ducati Motor Holding has announced plans to buy out shareholders at a 23% premium and take Ducati private. According to Forbes, this news drove up Piaggio stocks, though Piaggio asserted today that they have no intention of following Ducati’s lead. 56.5% of Piaggio shares are held by IMMSI SpA, Piaggio chairman/CEO Roberto Colaninno’s holding company.
(See comments, I originally totally mangled this story and reported that Ducati was threatening to buy out Piaggio stockholders. I blame Forbes for writing confusing sentences.)
Scooterville Wrecking Ball
One of our favorite scooter shops, Scooterville, recently moved to a new home in Minneapolis. At DealerExpo, owner Bob Hedstrom mentioned he had video footage of the demolition of the old building, and we knew that was just the sort of thing 2strokebuzz readers live to see. Thanks, Bob!
Adiva 250cc convertible launches in Japan
Remember the Adiva? The Adiva convertible scooter that Benelli’s old importer displayed at trade shows a few years ago has turned up in Japan, produced by a different company. While checking out the new “Andretti” Benellis (more on that soon), We asked U.S. importer Steve Rubakh about the Adiva, he said Benelli’s parent company Qianjiang sold the rights to the model and abandoned it because of safety problems. With the BMW C1 and the Diamo Velux also resigned to history, was the convertible scooter ahead of its time, or just a bad idea?
Paris’ MP3 taxi service
Motoblog reports Parisian entrepreneurs Ludovic Dazin and Remi Flesselles have launched “Nip Bike,” a Paris taxi service using Piaggio MP3 scooters.
Bajaj wins DTSi case
An Indian court has blocked TVS Motor from manufacturing or selling their Flame 125. Bajaj feels the Flame’s twin-spark ignition system is a copy of their DTSi system.
Dealer Expo 2008
Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Picture a midwestern pro football stadium. Got it? Now picture it totally full of Chinese motorscooters. Hold on, we’ll save you the trouble, here’s what it looks like:
We have a lot to say about Dealer Expo, and a lot of photos, so instead of one really long writeup, we’ll split it up into smaller posts all week. Stay tuned.
New Name For TGB US Importer With New Models
The Taiwanese scooter manufacturer TGB (Taiwan Golden Bee) has had a company called Cobra Sales as their importer for the last several years. The TGB product has been fairly good, if on the budget side of quality ROC scooters. The company is now appearing as Peirspeed and their website shows off thier expanded powersports line. The line-up includes uninspiring formulaic choppers as headliners but has a few new surprises. The Sachs MadAss has gotten a long-awaited displacement upgrade to 125cc. This change makes a lot more sense than powering the heavy and overly tall-in-the-saddle motorcycle with the anaemic 50cc 4 stroke Honda Cub clone motor. While the poor ergonomics have remained, as well as the 50cc option, new MadAss owners will now surely have a higher level of enjoyment with the extra power at the throttle of the nicely spartan and original machine. Another pleasant surprise from Sachs, noted on the Peirspeed website, is a trellis-framed supermoto called the X-Road. It’s a simple but good looking small displacement option that appears very nice as-is but really will scream for engine modifications or outright motor transplants (something two-stroke I’d like the think). Hopefully the new incarnation of Cobra Sales will be able to maintain their adequate level of dealer and parts support with their rapidly expanding line. I can not think of many examples of success following rapid expansion of a powersports line, but maybe they can be the first. Personally I’d like to see new importers stick to keeping it simple until they’ve established a relatively impeccable reputation.
Death of a Dream: R.I.P. Amarcord Concept
The critical words used when Italjet products are discussed have their origin in the frustration felt when their excellent concepts often fail in the execution of delivering the legendary products we hope for. The Velocifero, Dragster and Formula models made it far when reaching for iconic status but fell short in the end due to poor product support and the ultimate demise of the company’s incarnation at the time. Some exciting designs have yet to make it from prototype to production. Examples include the Scooop, Rollercraft and Amarcord. While the Scooop may have been outdone by the Piaggio MP3 in arriving first and the Rollercraft may yet arrive, the motorcycle-with-a-scooter-engine work of art known as the Amarcord seems to have died and it’s name lifted onto a Chinese scooter. Reported by Cyberscooter.it from the EICMA in 2007, the scooter with the Amarcord name appeared as one of Italjet’s new offerings. The scooter doesn’t look all that horrible it is slightly reminiscent of the Velocifero’s retro design with some tell-tale accents of mainland-China construction. Also note the yellow Rollercraft model in the background. What moves me to feel sad and mourn the loss of the of a great design is that the name transfer of the Amarcord label from an incredibly eye-catching and novel design to an homogenized standard scooter signals the death of an idea that’s time is ripe and appears to be lost on most (but not all) manufacturers. R.I.P. Amarcord concept.
Production plans for MIT “RoboScooters”
Last year, we reported on an MIT modular folding rental-scooter concept. It was a promising idea, sort of like a more space- and fuel-efficient iGo, and it’s good to hear that RoboScooter is headed into production.
Brush with Vespa bandits
A first-hand account of a run-in with Sicilian “Vespa Bandits.”
Optimism for Aprilia USA
Paolo Timoni is feeling good about Aprilia’s future, based on the popularity of the Tuono 1000 R Factory sportbike, but it looks like Aprilia’s biggest growth was in the scooter market. From a Piaggio Group press release:
Aprilia’s U.S. scooter retail unit sales, which rose 56 percent over the 12-month period, were aided by the addition of two models: the newest and most powerful addition to the Scarabeo family, the 500 ie, and the sophisticated, urban-dwelling SportCity 250.
Aprilia scooters are in a tough spot, marketing-wise, They’re expensive, and their Piaggio and Vespa brethren get all the attention from scooter fans while the sportbikes get all the attention from Aprilia fans (and, often, dealers). The situation is further complicated by the Scarabeo line being marketed separately from Aprilia’s other scooters. Scarabeos have their fans, but the SportCity seems to be a pretty good bike that you rarely see on the street.
No Show
A couple people have asked if we’re covering the 2008 Cycle World International Motorcycle Show this weekend at the Stevens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL.. We’re not.
We’ve been there in 2003 (review), 2004 (review), 2006 (review), and 2007 and every year it’s pretty much the same. If you’ve never been, it’ s a good time, but after five years, all the choppers and sportbikes blend together. If anyone is going and wants to write up a story and send some photos, we’d be happy to post it, but we’re going to rest our legs for DealerExpo next weekend.