Our Larry Crowne winner!

After a couple weeks of incessant Lance Corona posts, I’m going to wrap this contest up and announce a winner, chosen at random from the 50-or-so entries we had in the comment thread and via email. And the winner is (shake shake):

ChloePuff!

Congrats, Chloe. Modern Buddy readers will recognize that name, she went out on a limb and cited Quadrophenia as her favorite scooter movie. Chloe, please email illnoise(at)2strokebuzz(dot)com with your mailing address so we can have the nice folks at Universal Pictures send your $25 gas card, t-shirt, and notebook.

Lots of great entries, thanks everyone! I learned about a couple movies I hadn’t heard of that I’ll need to check out, and also a few favorites I’ll have to watch again. If I had picked my favorite (rather than at random,) I’d have chosen Ambassador, who cited the Untouchables’ scene in Repo Man. (one of my favorite films, and especially relevant because Repo Man’s Sy Richardson briefly appeared in Larry Crowne!) Ambassador, drop us a line, we’ve got a 2strokebuzz shirt for you.

Oasis Triumph On The Block. Or Is It?


Journallive.co.uk is reporting of a sale of the Triumph Tina scooter used in photos for the Oasis interview CD “Be Somewhere Else Now”. The photo included in the story shows something close, but not quite exactly like one in a photo retrieved from an online sale of the CD in question. There is different letter placement and a horn in the ‘O’ on the bike pictured for auction. Who cares? Maybe someone buying for the purposes of provenance. I was just disappointed to find it wasn’t a Velocifero (see page 18/19).

Update 7/7/11:

The winner of the auction, Mark Watson, contacted us to explain:

I bought the Oasis Triumph at the Boldon auction. It came with various documents, including the certificate of authenticity. The letters on the fairing where put on the cd case using a computer. The actual stickers on the bike were put on later while the bike was displayed as an exhibit.

Ah, that all makes sense (and digital color adjustment would explain the color. Mark also explains the horn in the comments below.

Larry Crowne Electric Scooter, Photo.

As you may have noticed around scooter blogs, it’s Larry Crowne mania. You may recall the 2SB post about the Lambretta outfitted by Route 66 Scooters with an electronic conversion kit from Soundspeed Scooters. The person behind that kit is also behind the Fido electric scooter concept also reported on earlier. Now we have photographic evidence of the machine in action. The photo shows the clearly un-two stroke drive train. For some continuity, they even throw in a kick start lever! While I haven’t seen the film yet, I’ll likely check it out while it’s in first run. In the mean time, can anyone chime in with a description of how this scooter plays a role in the film? Is it really passed off as a stink wheel with a sound effect? Or is it embraced for the Lithium Ion powered machine that it is?

(photo from Zimbio)

Larry Crowne Opens Today

Larry Crowne opens today nationwide. Read our review here and enter our Larry Crowne t-shirt, $25 gas card, and notebook giveaway, which ends tomorrow (Saturday).

If those stakes aren’t high enough for you, Fandango’s Larry Crowne Sweepstakes offers a 150cc Genuine Buddy St. Tropez as the grand prize.

Genuine Scooter Co. has a marketing relationship with the studio, but PiaggioUSA’s marketing department couldn’t resist getting in on the action. Piaggio’s marketing department emailed a letter to dealers bragging about the appearance of Piaggio and Vespa scooters in the film, and praising Vespa Dallas’s group ride to a screening, with a link to a local news video.

Larry Crowne, Scooterist


The motorscooter has appeared in countless films, whether as a star player or as a background prop, and many an internet thread or 2am campfire conversation has been dedicated to cataloging the history of scooters in movies. Only a handful of films, and even fewer major-release commercial ones, have given as much attention to our favorite mode of transportation as the new Tom Hanks film Larry Crowne. Seeing that the marketing team made an effort to target the movie to scooterists, through a marketing partnership with Genuine Scooters and outreach to scooter clubs and websites (including this one) around America, hopefully it’s worth reviewing Larry Crowne from the perspective of a longtime scooterist.
Continue readingLarry Crowne, Scooterist”

“Has This Ever Happened to You?”

Eric catches video of NoHo Scooters’ Mike Frankovich helping Tom Hanks start his Riva at the L.A. Larry Crowne premiere last night. Despite what the uptight publicist in the foreground is thinking, this fragment of cinéma vérité will almost surely be Larry Crowne’s most memorable contribution to scootering legend, and will endear Tom Hanks to all scooterists forever. And I’m not being snarky for once.

Tonight is the Chicago premiere, see you there! The movie opens Friday nationwide, our Larry Crowne contest runs through Saturday.

Win a Larry Crowne prize package
from 2strokebuzz!

Tom Hanks’ film Larry Crowne opens nationwide on July 1, with earlier premieres in some cities (contact your local Genuine dealer for info). What with Hanks being a scooterist, and scooters being prominently featured in the flick, Universal was kind enough to offer a prize package for one lucky 2strokebuzz reader, including a Larry Crowne notebook, a t-shirt and a $25 gasoline gift card. To enter, all you have to do is post a comment below answering the following question: Continue reading “Win a Larry Crowne prize package
from 2strokebuzz!”

Get To Know “Larry Crowne”

If you haven’t heard the name “Larry Crowne” thrown around yet, you will soon. The Tom Hanks film comes out released July 1 (how many times will we see “…scoots into theaters?”) and features motorscooters more prominently than just about any film since Quadrophenia. I know 2strokebuzz readers consider themselves pretty “avant garde” and this is a big-budget mainstream film, but I’m willing to bet a good number of hipster scoooterists will make an exception to their “Julia Roberts rule” for this one.
Continue reading “Get To Know “Larry Crowne””

Vespa’s Worst Co-Promotion Ever

If you need more proof that VespaUSA is very nearly criminally clueless: co-promotion with Havaianas flip-flops.

I know, people ride in flip-flops all the time. But to PROMOTE that? To ENDORSE it? That’s just plain irresponsible. I’d love to see a flood of tweets to @Havaianas and @VespaUSA from safe scooterists. And as @scooterism points out: “Aside from safety, this is why drivers don’t take us seriously.” (thanks, Eric, for leading the charge!)

And don’t give me “Havaianas makes other shoes” and “You don’t have to wear them on your scooter,” Havaianas is famous for flip-flops, the ad shows flip-flops and a Vespa, their “Make your own” system only offers flip-flops, and the “other shoes” they make are also totally scooter-inappropriate anyway. On top of that, the copy says “You can stay in-style in your Make Your Own Havaianas and be eco chic on a brand new Vespa!” which certainly implies that you’d do both at the same time.

Ace’s Bomber Jacket

Inspired by a newbie thread about patches on Modern Buddy, I finally tracked down the source of a particularly awesome JPEG I came across a few weeks ago. Turns out the JPEG was just the tip of the iceberg of Ace’s Jacket Cosplay Breakdown. Anyone stuck home watching Dr. Who on PBS in the late 80s, I bet you’re with me on this one. I wanted a scooter in 1986, but I wanted a Honda, thanks to Adam Ant and Lou Reed. I didn’t know anything about scooter culture back then, but man, did I want a bomber jacket with a bunch of random patches.

Bieber SEO Scooter Can of Corn
UPDATE: OMG VIDEO!

I have never used the word “Bieber” on this site, so here’s my shot at tripling my Google ranking: Justin Bieber on a scooter in Israel. He appears to be wearing clamdiggers (are those actually hip again? I guess they are now) but actual shoes and socks and a full-face. Good kid. Thanks for the link, Bradford, who just happened to be surfing some hispanic preeteen girl’s Justin Bieber Blogspot.

UPDATE: VIDEO! OMG!

Gaga Gag Gift Vespa

Also via Scooterism: Sadly, this West Coast Customs Vespa designed as a birthday gift from Lady Gaga to Perez Hilton is not an April Fool’s joke. Seriously, is that what “World Famous Customs” shops with their own TV shows do? I have a Michael’s Frequent Shopper Card, a chisel-tipped paint pen, and a hot-glue gun, I should get into the biz. The cake-decorating-show people have way more skillz.

PS, you just *know* it’s a 2009 50cc, and Gaga’s people convinced some dealer to give it to them for nothing (for the “PR,” which there was none of) and then they dropped five figures on rhinestones at WCC without batting an eye.

Hill Street P200E

Vespa product placement from the early 80s: a P200E guest stars on Hill Street Blues.

You may not remember a time when scooter sightings in the media were rare, but back in 2sb’s ‘zine days (the mid-90s), a vintage scooter appearing in a commercial would set Usenet ablaze with excitement. This appearance (from 1983) would have come at a time when Vespa was active in the U.S. but struggling against falling gas prices, and Honda’s just-unveiled more modern 4-stroke scooters. Within a year, with help from Lou Reed, Devo, Grace Jones, and Adam Ant, Honda would dominate the market. With the added complications of new emissions laws in California, Piaggio abandoned the market a couple years later, not returning until 1999.

Was this appearance a deliberate marketing move, or a writer’s whim? Hard to say, but at this point, it’s likely Piaggio was seeking out any mass-media attention they could get, and law enforcement would have been an attractive market, indeed many police agencies did use Vespas for parking enforcement at the time, (and is that an Ape in the background?) On the other hand, the scooter is not particularly glorified, the officer riding it is humiliated on several occasions. This was the first part of a three-part series, if you can sit through them all, let me know if the scooter appears again in parts II or III.

Return of the Honda Motocampo?

Scooter Station features photos of a new Honda Motocampo concept, a modernized version of the scooter that was designed to fit in the back of the Honda City automobile for the 80s Japanese market. It was a great idea then, and still is, but will Madness be available for the television commercial?
Continue reading “Return of the Honda Motocampo?”