Category: Sightings

Scooters pop up all over the place

Piaggio USA names new PR firm

Looks like Piaggio USA won’t have Access Communications to kick around anymore. Hard to believe anyone could be worse than CooperKatz, who botched the “Vespa Blogs” idea, but you’ve also gotta wonder why the current glut of scooter stories are practically ignoring Piaggio products to talk about the 100mpg Buddy. Oh, wait we just answered our own question there. Anyway, if Brandware can increase the Vespa’s fuel efficiency*, lower the price, and improve the parts supply, and give dealers more realistic terms and margins… Good luck, Brandware.

*Place your bets on the exact date Vespa’s fuel efficiency rating is ‘recalculated’ to be more competitive with other scooters. (Alternately, guess how long it takes before the hybrid MP3 becomes the centerpiece of their campaign, despite the fact that $10/gallon gas wouldn’t drive an American to buy an $8000 hybrid three-wheeled scooter.)

Huuuugs! Achewood Vespa for sale!

OMG OMG OMG! I heart Achewood. I heart scooters. I’ve been lusting after this Vespa Rally that Chris Onstad painted for years. Now, that very scooter is for sale in the scoot.net classifieds, and it’s going to pretty much take everything I’ve got to not call the dude. Thanks a lot, Matt.

A personal note to dude selling the bike: Please send me more photos, and then tell me it’s already been sold so I can stop thinking about it. Then post it on eBay Platinum Reserve where it belongs.

Vespa’s punchy “new” scooter

If this article is to be believed, the Vespa LX150 was just released in Canadia. Maybe they meant to review the Vespa LXS, which just came oot, and is being promoted in Canada under the banner “Born to be Square”, with what looks like 4/5th of the Kids in the Hall, circa 1992, with LXS headsets for heads.

Many people hate the square headlight on the “S.” Those people are dumb, it is awesome, and VofC is smart to turn it into a selling point. If you want a round headlight, buy the “new” LX 150!

2nd Octannual 2SB Coloring Contest!

It’s been eight years since our last coloring contest, and the wounds have healed, let’s try it again. As you may have heard, MotoGP’s coming to Indianapolis Motor Speedway this summer, so we’re co-opting THEIR contest to show those cheese-eating, terrorist-loving Europeans what a MotoGP bike should look like.

Continue reading “2nd Octannual 2SB Coloring Contest!”

Another (positive) Honda-inspired rant

Bob sent this great Honda ad from 1967. The ad’s a perfect illustration of everything Honda got right back then, and explains how they came to dominate the U.S. motorcycle industry at that time. There are a lot of ideas here for aspiring foreign scooter and motorcycle importers (in no particular order):
Continue reading “Another (positive) Honda-inspired rant”

Celebrities are just like us!

They sweet-talk their way out of scooter DUIs! So after you’re pulled over for weaving around Miami Beach at 4:11 AM, try telling the arresting officer “F**k you, I’m not drunk,” then later bragging “I’m friends with most cops in the city and they told me the guy who got me isn’t even liked by his colleagues. He’s a 400-pound f**k unfit for duty” Oh, wait, that only works for Mickey Rourke.

Oh, goody, more from fashion.ie:

Mickey had a passenger with him on the Vespa, but there’s no way anyone was getting a hold of her to testify. He doesn’t even know who the hell she was: Rourke said the mysterious blond riding on the back of the Vespa at the time of his arrest couldn’t have been used as a witness at a trial. “Don’t ask me her name,” Rourke says. “I have no idea who she was. I met her in a bar and never saw her again.”

And he’s looking good in the NY Post.

Quad mod rods on display in UK

Gordon “Sting” “Ace Face” Sumner’s Vespa “GS” and Phil “Jimmy” “Parklife” Daniels’ Lambretta are the highlights of a Quadrophenia exhibition at Littledean Jail in near Gloucester, England. Quadrophenia director Franc Roddam is calling it: “This is the best collection of Quadrophenia memorabilia I have ever seen.” Book your flight now, and cue ten angry comments questioning the authenticity of the bikes and/or reminding us that there were six GSes made for the movie and none of them were GSes.