When scooter news breaks, we put it under a tarp in the garage.
After last month’s rumors, we’ve received a copy of an email Lance Powersports is apparently distributing to dealers announcing they’re SYM’s new distributor in the western United States. It’s unclear if eastern states will continue with Carter Brothers or move to a new distributor, but either way, Lance clearly isn’t making any efforts to be … Continue reading “Lance/SYM deal confirmed”
Once upon a time — more than a decade ago — an Italian motorcycle company with a history of offbeat scooters decided to make a big push into the booming European scooter market. The designs, notably the Swatch/Vespa-hybrid Velocifero and the ahead-of-its-time Dragster captured the public imagination worldwide. Since Italjet were Italian, they inevitably botched … Continue reading “Italjet refuses to die”
Remember Kinetic Motors and their plan to produce seven Italjet models in India? Only one (The Italjet Millennium, renamed the Kinetic “Blaze”) ever came to market, and Kinetic was bought out a year ago by Mahindra & Mahindra. Now M&M is reconsidering Kinetic’s Italjet plan. If you’ve been pining for a new Velocifero or Dragster … Continue reading “New hope for Indian Italjets?”
MotoGPmatters.com (aka KropotinThinks) reported on the efforts of KTM (warning: poor, resource-burdening flash site) to implement a Kinetic Energy Recovery System on their 125 cc Grand Prix machines. Kropotkin cites a report by the Spanish motorcycle website Motosolo describing a system used last fall in the race at Valencia and again during testing this winter … Continue reading “Small Displacement Hybrid Racing Revealed”
India-based Mahindra & Mahindra is considering a purchase of Malaguti Moto. M&M recently bought Kinetic Motors, and thus owns the rights to several Italjet models. Malaguti, like Italjet, produced several popular scooters five years ago, even making brief appearances in nascent American scooter market. Today, both manufacturers appear to be limping along selling a combination … Continue reading “M&M considers Malaguti”
The Central Chronical reports that Kinetic Motors has been purchased by automotive giant, Mahindra & Mahindra. More commonly known for their utility vehicles, M & M thinks that scooters and small displacement motorcycles are the way to go and there’s a still plenty of untapped market in India. In the last few years, Kinetic has … Continue reading “Indian Scooter Maker Bought By Indian Tractor Maker”
Indian manufacturers, who have all but abandoned the scooter market over the past couple years to produce 100c motorcycles, are developing new scooters with bigger displacements to compete with their own motorcycles that killed off the scooter market in the first place. And Kinetic expects to launch the full Italjet-derived line “in the coming months.” … Continue reading “India to break the 150cc barrier”
Italjet has launched another model in Europe, the 2-stroke 50cc SX1. Brooke recognized the engine as a CPI design, though the body appears to be unique in its generic-osity. Italjet’s European site has been “under construction” for some time, so details are thin on all their bikes, but so far, they’re marketing what appears to … Continue reading “Italjet SX1 (and another Dragster rant)”
RedOrbit reports that LML, Bajaj, Honda, and Kinetic are all working on natural-gas powered concept bikes, possibly including dual-fuel options. Just thought we’d throw that in there with all the 210cc nuclear-powered rotary-engine automatic time-travelling Stella rumors floating around.
Here’s what Vina–and R. Kelly–missed while having their appendices removed: The Hartford Courant ran a decent-but-typical scooter trend roundup story Tuesday. 40 scooterists rode through Cardiff, Wales to promote a stage adaptation of Quadrophenia. Indian political contender Surjit Singh Kohli is campaigning on a scooter in Punjab, while nearly 100 supporters of another Punjabi politician … Continue reading “News chunks: February 7, 2007”
After discovering late last night that Diamo USA was bringing Italjet scooters and motorcycles to America, we were stupefied, excited, and to be honest, a bit skeptical. Diamo has a fairly good reputation among scooter dealers and riders, but were they the right company to re-introduce the legendary Dragster to the U.S.? Where were these … Continue reading “DiamoUSA: More about new Italjets”
3702 In a surprise announcement today, Diamo USA announced they’ll import the Italjet Dragster and Torpedo, and other Italjet bikes including the Griffon 650 motorcycle, starting in February. We’ll have more details and analysis tomorrow. (Note: these will be Italjet-branded Dragsters, not the “Italiano” models that were once expected to be built under license by … Continue reading “Italjet Dragster to return to US in February”
Sorry, we’ve still been a bit under the weather and busy with the impending holidays, but here are some stories from the last week to keep you up to date: Seinfeld star (and model for illnoise’s current hairstyle) Jason Alexander is getting around Australia on a Vespa. Autoblog makes a corny joke about AMCA’s bazooka … Continue reading “News bits”
This my first review of a scooter in more than ten years of writing 2strokebuzz. My first scooter was a vintage Vespa and have pretty much stuck to what I know. I’ve taken a few spins on various modern scooters, and have been impressed by some, and not by others. The Blur impressed me.
After the initial (positive) response to the Kinetic Blaze in the Indian press, and reports in May that Kinetic’s version of the Italjet Velocifero would (“soon”) be coming (exclusively) to America, Kinetic has been pretty quiet. Now they’ve announced the Blaze is going to be exported to Japan, but still no official word on Velociferos … Continue reading “Blaze in Japan, Blasé in U.S.”