CONTENTS
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03 Editorial
So what it’s all about, eh?
06 News
All the latest scooter news, new products, news from the trade and other stuff!
13 NEW: Trigger Happy – the Young Guns Column
The scooter scene needs ‘new blood’ does it? Well here they are... and this is what they have to say.
15 Workshop Essentials
Craig at Smalley Cross shares his ‘essential’ with us all.
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17 Vespa Rally 200 Silver Jubilee Special Last month’s questions answered
19 Scootering Sounds
If you’ve not got Bad Manners’ Ska ‘n’ B, why not?
22 Cafe Racer
The star of our front cover, and also of the Isle of Wight rally patch.
26 Feedback
Your letters, emails, personals, questions and other stuff you’ve sent us.
48 Four guys, two continents, one big charity ride!
Cape Town to Dublin by scooter – and without any back up vehicles either!
50 Cheesy Piece
A Rat rod from Germany called Porno Hellraiser with a stick shift gear change. Go on, admit you’re intrigued…
84 32 Blast From The Past
55 years ago this month… Gearing up for the 1958 Earls Court Motorcycle Show.
36 Gathering Dust
Four custom classics from decades past, still around today.
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4 | SCOOTERING | OCTOBER 2013
40 Exclusive interview – Romolo Ferri (part 1)
From MV Agusta factory racer to Lambretta record breaker; this is one heck of an interesting man!
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54 Club do’s & events
104 Tech Torque
A calendar of scooter related events.
The technical letters page where no question goes unanswered.
56 Return To The Bridge The YSA attempts another world record.
106 Back to Basics
58 Brighton Mod Weekender
This month we’re changing Lambretta brake shoes.
The New Untouchables’ August bank holiday gathering.
109 A Buyer’s Guide… to the Vespa GTS
62 The Book of Scootering Rules – Forming a Scooter Club
Thinking of joining the darkside? Read this to avoid any pitfalls.
114 NEW: Staff Scooters
Some advice from yesteryear before you take the plunge!
65 Euroyeyé Mod & 60s Weekender
103
Held in sunny Gijon, Spain.
66 The Isle of Wight International Scooter Rally
Full coverage of the biggest event of its kind in the world. Can you see yourself anywhere?
78 Mersea Island Rally
Basking in the Essex sunshine.
82 Coyotes 30th Anniversary Rally
Celebrating north of the border.
84 Blue Moon
Dukesy recreates his personal blast from the past with a Vespa PX Disc.
90 Recommended Listening
The latest albums and singles reviewed, by us for you.
Sharing tips, knowledge and experience from our sheds, this month with Barrie’s Eibar and Andy’s Li Series 3.
118 Specialist Services
Whatever you want, you’ll find them all here. Hopefully.
92 Specialized
138 Various Club Events
96 Spirito di Sei Giorni
Papworth Ride to EuroLambretta, Avignon 2013
An interview with the charitable Specials fan and author, Paul Willo.
Turning a silk purse into a silk purse, by way of a sow’s ear and Iranian Vespa parts.
140 Scooter Travels
146 Scooter Sport BSSO racing at Mallory Park.
121 Scooter Trader
Classified and business advertising, for all your scootering needs.
134 Scooter Clubs to Join
From around the UK, you’ll find contact details here.
150 TV Speedster
Spanish Lambretta Series 2 with Porsche influences and style.
154 Into The Sunset
Your tales of scooter trial and tribulations.
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www.scootering.com www.scootertrader.com Editor: Andy Gillard Email: editorial@scootering.com Publisher: Steve Rose Contributors: Sticky, Richie Lunt, Barrie Braithwaite, Iggy, Nik Skeat, Steve Dawson, Dave Oakley, Marcus Broix, Lobby, AM, Mark Sargeant, Lee Hollick, John Woods and Lee Daniels. Many thanks to all other scooterists and clubs that have also contributed to this issue in some way. Cover: Photography by Richie Lunt Designer: Charlotte Turnbull Reprographics: Simon Duncan Group production editor: Tim Hartley General queries and back issues: Tel: 01507 529529 24 hr answerphone Email: help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk Archivist: Jane Skayman Tel: 01507 529423 Email: jskayman@mortons.co.uk Subscription: Full subscription rates (but see page 38 for offer): (12 months 12 issues, inc post and packing) – UK £47.88. Export rates are also available – see page 38 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value Added Tax. Distribution: Comag, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middx UB7 7QE Tel: 01895 433600 Printed by: William Gibbons & Sons, Wolverhampton
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Gary Thomas – gthomas@mortons.co.uk Colin Smith – csmith@mortons.co.uk Tel (01507) 524004 Fax (01507) 529499
Divisional advertising manager: Sandra Fisher Email: sfisher@mortons.co.uk
ADVERTISING DEADLINES
The advertising deadline for the next issue of Scootering (November 2013: 329) is Thursday, October 3 On sale in newsagents October 24 Free ads, personals, club do’s & events These are all to be booked via the website at www.scootering.com or via post to: Scootering Magazine, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ The next free ads deadline is Wednesday, October 2, 2013
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Subscription manager: Paul Deacon pdeacon@mortons.co.uk Circulation manager: Steven O’Hara sohara@mortons.co.uk Marketing manager: Charlotte Park Email: cpark@mortons.co.uk Production manager: Craig Lamb Publishing director: Dan Savage Commercial director: Nigel Hole Associate director: Malcolm Wheeler Managing director: Brian Hill SCOOTERING (USPS:020-245) is published monthly by Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ USA subscriptions are $60 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. Periodical Postage is paid at Bancroft, WI and additional entries. Postmaster: Send address changes to SCOOTERING, c/o Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. 715-572-4595. chris@classicbikebooks.com SCOOTERING is published by: Mortons Scooter Media, a division of Mortons Media Group Ltd © 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any way without the written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0268 7194
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asthte Bl om fr
t P1a9s 58
years ago...
The late 1950s were a time of huge scooter sales in Great Britain, with many manufacturers producing them, in turn offering the buying public a far greater choice than ever before.
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n october 1958 the industry was gearing up for the earls court Motorcycle show, manufacturers announcing new models and line-ups for the following year. ‘britain’s biggest scooter challenge’ was the headline that heralded the arrival of the bsA and triumph sunbeam and tigress scooters (the same machine with different names). Available with a two-stroke 175cc engine or a four-stroke 250cc twin, on the eve of the show, Motor Cycling wrote: “of the two designs upon which the models are based, one – a 249cc ohvc vertical twin – promises a new standard of performance for this increasingly popular class of vehicle.” the piece continued: “riding one of the 250s produced three outstanding impressions. First of these was the featherlight operation of the gear-change, which required no more than toe pressure to tip the pedal forward for first gear then backward for changing up.” so, despite this being the all new, all conquering scooter from england, it was still using the old motorcycle gear change method of ‘dancing on the floorboards’, albeit having ridden a sunbeam i must confess that i agree with the tester in that ‘the selection of neutral was quite positive.’ For those that don’t know, whatever gear you’re in, press the neutral pedal and that’s where the selector goes. nice touch. the 175 version was to be priced at £164-19s-8d (inc purchase tax), the 250 at £187-2s-6d and the electric start 250 at £200-17s, which certainly seemed competitive compared with the Vespa gs 150 and Lambretta tV175 series 1 (see following pages), and so you have to imagine that such was the popularity of the italian machines that not even a new, larger capacity, competitively priced british built scooter could do much more than nibble a small portion at their market share. the Dayton cycle company of London
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was also preparing to launch an electric start scooter for 1959; the 174cc Albatross Flamenco. it boasted a low seat height of 28in, paid attention to ‘do it yourself’ servicing and the road tester of the preproduction model wrote: “the first – and lasting – impression was of compact ‘cobbiness’ and the feeling that the machine could be flung around twisting roads, in exuberant manner.” Weighing in at 350lb and with a tank capacity of 23⁄4 gallons, the 249cc DKr Manx from Wolverhampton had a claimed 70mph top speed. A whopping 110lb heavier than the triumph/bsA 250cc scooter, at £22914s-6d it was going to be quite a bit more expensive when it arrived in 1959 too. no wonder we don’t see many about today... of course it wasn’t just the home market these british manufacturers were aiming for, although with hindsight it would seem they didn’t set their sights too far afield. that said, the italians would be a particularly tough nut to crack. During the first six months of 1958, nearly 40% of all motorcycle sales (including scooters) in italy were attributed to Lambretta and Vespa, some 79,455 from those two marques alone. the next 35% of sales were credited to guzzi, Motom, garelli, gilera, Ducati, bianchi, MV and Morini. Putting that into perspective, for the first six months of 2013, in all a total of 48,646 two wheelers (motorcycles, scooters and mopeds) were sold in the UK. Andy
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Cheesy piece
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Building his custom Vespa, Rob certainly learned one thing; you cannot create a low budget lowrider in the lowlands on low cholesterol cheese.
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ob Kusters is a Limburger. You might think that’s not a very nice thing to say, but in Rob’s case it is as I am not referring to his body odour but his origin. Due to its geographical position, the Dutch province of Limburg is, in many ways, a very unique region, even by worldwide comparison. One of the distinctions is the Dutch-German border running through Rob’s home town of Kerkrade. There are no customs buildings, toll bars or fences; the demarcation line simply runs through the middle of a residential street that is called Niew Straat on the Dutch and Neustrasse on the German side (meaning New Street). This unusual constellation regularly caters for interesting news when, for instance, an otherwise friendly neighbourhood becomes a scene of havoc at national football matches.
As if that wasn’t novel enough, the Belgian border is also only a few miles away, which makes the area something like the Golden Triangle of the Rhineland. And we are not only talking in political but also in cultural terms, with the Dutch cultivating generations of crossbred and genetically modified – you’ve guessed it – cheeses. The small town of Kerkrade alone has four cheese shops that are frequently visited by locals and tourists alike sampling a wide variety of produce. “I never cared much for cheese,” Rob admitted, “but when I was offered a piece at a party I found myself hooked.” He looked at his scooter and went on to say: “One day we all sat in a cheese shop and talked about garage clearances and building scooters out of leftover bits. For the first time we tried this extra mature Limburger. I guess on that night I got
OWNER DETAILS Name: Rob Kusters. Job: Motorcycle mechanic and metal fabricator. Scooter club: Formerly Kolbenfresser SC from Herzogenrath near Aachen, but that doesn’t exist any more. First interest in scooters: 2004. My mate Kevin had a Vespa PK 50 S. I took it for spin, fell in love with it and bought my own Vespa. First scooter: Vespa PX 80 kitted with a 135 cc DR barrel and a Simonini pipe. Favourite model: Vespa P-range. Favourite style of custom scooter: Lambretta choppers. First rally: Western Run in 2005. Favourite rally: Run and Race near Karlsruhe, Monsun Run near Emmerich, Scooter Dive near Aachen – and then there were all the others… What do you like about rallies/events today? People with the same interest for ‘traditional’ scooters meeting up. What do you dislike about rallies today? Car suckers. If you were a rally organiser, what one thing would change? More activities like rideouts, fun games etc. Favourite custom scooter of all time: Lambretta chopper Grausam by Andreas Stammsen. If you had to recommend one scooter part what would it be? The new Conti Twist tyre.
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Isle ofWight scooter Rally
2013
For a number of years now I’ve been meaning to give the Isle of Wight scooter rally a miss, so as not to let it go stale on me. But time and time again I find myself returning to biggest event on the scootering calendar of its kind worldwide. I’ve been enjoying it year on year too, but there comes a point when you must ask; has the Isle of Wight scooter rally had its day?
I
t was interesting to discover that somewhat quietly Wightlink has finally bowed to pressure (and presumably reduced revenue) and offered discounted advance tickets to scooter riders for the weekend, a deal that rally organiser VFM has arranged with rival Red Funnel via Southampton for a few years now. That said, Portsmouth quayside was less busy than I expected when we arrived late Friday afternoon, suggesting that maybe their proverbial boat had sailed for 2013? Waiting on the vehicle deck to disembark at the other end, the first scooter to start up was not a battered Li150 with broken under the kickstart Fresco exhaust; instead we were greeted with the quiet jangle of a starter motor followed almost immediately by the gentle hum of a standard four-stroke Vespa GTS ticking over. Sorry folks, but it just sounds wrong… Once on the island, any concerns of reduced numbers were quashed with the sight of scooters buzzing here, there and everywhere, as we made our way towards Ryde. With friends spread out from the rally camp site at Ryde’s Smallbrook stadium (along with over 1400 other scooterists), to the alternative site at Kite
Hill, and to digs in Ryde, Sandown and beyond, it was apparent that the concentration of the weekend’s activities might well be diluted a little. In fact after arriving at the ‘top of the hill’ in Union Street, Ryde, we were pleasantly surprised at just how easy it was to get served at the numerous imbibing emporiums along our route towards the Ice Arena on the seafront. In the peculiar way that these things work, it actually delayed our downhill trip as friends old and new were encountered from all around the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, New Zealand and beyond... proving there really is something magical about the Isle of Wight scooter rally, no matter how much of a scooterist you consider yourself. For those from overseas it’s the opportunity to see so many classic machines together at one time, their owners all in town for the same reason. For us tainted riders from the homeland, there’s still the chance to see something new, discover different machines, talk about our personal preferences and catch up with acquaintances from yesterday and yesteryear. The incentive to arise on Saturday for many was the custom show in Ryde, which once
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Isle of Wight International Custom Scooter Show
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Judges: Trev Newall (LCGB), Robin Quartermain (president, VCB) and Shane Hayter (custom scooter owner/ builder) Class
Best vinyl/graphics Best Auto
Sponsor Scootering Magazine [£100 cash] VFM [£100 cash] Mike Phoenix Scooters Bovver Up North Crusader Promotions Reggae Got Soul Hipshaker Scooter Care Classic Scooterist Scene Dave Dickinson Kustom Airbrushing Offscreen Print Twist & Go
Club Display
Colchester DVLC
Best of Show 6
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Best Ridden Exhibitor’s Choice Punters’ Choice Best First Time Entrant Best Original Best Accessories Best pre-65 Lambretta Best restored Lambretta Best Mural
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Best Individual Display
Winner Start Me Up (1) Real McKoi (2) Start Me Up Barry Sheene (3) Vespa Arbarth (4) Red T5 Mk.I TV200 (5) Series 1 Li, 717YUF Starstream, NWJ 528D
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Start Me Up Cy’s Sheet Metal (6) Gilera Runner, A5 NOB Lambretta Chopper Owners’ Club Memphis Belle (7)
CBS Whitton Gloucestershire Association Best pre-72 Vespa Old Bird 2 of Scooterists Best Chop Lambretta Chopper OC Dead Man’s Shoes (8) Best Oddity Mick Biggin Electrical Vespeda 66 Best Paintwork Jubilee Scooters Real McKoi Best Engineering Big Dave’s Scooter Trumps Piece of Mind Best Plating Quality Chrome Pulp Fiction (9) Best Street Racer Lambretta Lee Hollick Photography SX200 (10) Best Street Racer Vespa Max’s Badges Dominator (11) Best Custom Vespa Northumbria Scooter Services Sting in The Tail (12) Jay Marriott Vespa & Best restored Vespa 92L2 (13) Lambretta Works Best engraving Halifax Elite SC Elegantly Wasted The Rob Pettinger Memorial for Best Custom Lambretta – Start Me Up The Steve Bywater Memorial for Best Hybrid – Lambretta RG500 (14)
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TV Speedster
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| I don’t know about the rest of you, but quite often when I’m riding along I check out other vehicles for colours and styles, which I may one day decide to replicate on my own bike. Now, while I’m checking out the latest Fords and Mazdas as I traverse the highways and byways of this land, Carl Barlow here found inspiration in a classic Porsche Speedster.
Q
uite often, especially with modern colours, I just know they won’t transfer to the curvaceous style of an old Lambretta and still look good, but persevere and you’ll find something. For Carl, however, the midFifties Porsche had the lines to suit a Lambretta of a similar heritage, and the fact that when he first clapped eyes on one he drew immediate parallels between the design of the Speedster badge and that of a Lambretta simply sealed the deal. It was at a Porsche show that Carl first clapped eyes on a 356 Speedster, or rather three of them, and vowed to himself that one day he’d love to own one. Of course there’s still time for Carl to get that lottery win, but in the meantime he decided that the Spanish Series 2 Lambretta he’d recently purchased would suit some Speedster treatment perfectly. He also thought that the Speedster name would suit a Lambretta too, and I wholeheartedly agree. With the scooter already in his possession and ready for an overhaul, Carl paid a visit to Gran Sport to get the proverbial ball rolling.
With a reputation for attention to detail, especially in a retro style, the Birmingham shop was not only a local choice but an educated one too. The paint shop was also local too, I-Paint being the people who took Carl’s ideas of classic silver Porsches, speed stripes and his love of candy apple red (after having a metallic red scooter back in the 1980s Carl’s managed to get the colour on every bike he’s owned since!), and transformed it into a jaw dropping reality. Again, the detail is key here – just check out the speedo and surround on the headset with the stripe following through that as well, very tidy indeed. While the build was handled by Gran Sport, Carl was busy locating unique pieces for his Lambretta, quite literally from around the world. Keeping the side panels securely in place (yes, we’ve all seen some pop off in our time!), are Italian leather bonnet straps often seen on classic sports cars. While they’re maybe a little expensive for what they are, Carl made the mistake in the past of ‘buying cheap, buying twice’ and won’t be doing that again if he can help it.
owNER DETAILS Owner: Carl Barlow. Age: 48. Scooter club: The Low Numbers, Leamington Spa and LCGB. First interest in scooters: 1982. First scooter: Vespa 150 Super in 1985. Favourite models: Lambretta GP and Vespa Sportique. Favourite style of scooter: Cafe Racer. First rally: Isle of Wight on my 150 Super. Worst rally: Disc 85 – bad weather/ bad venue. Funniest experience with a scooter: My old friend Tony B wheelying up a tree! Dislikes about rallies today: Lack of change since the 1980s. What do you like in Scootering magazine? New product features. Who first inspired you in the scooter scene? Some guy who had a Vespa 50 who lived near me in Kenilworth, every time he rode past I ran out to see him. Essential piece of riding kit: Breakdown recovery card! Most useless parts ever bought: 90% of the crap on eBay.
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