Grahame McIver - and his lambrettas

Interview with Grahame McIver, by Jess Corbett

“I needed transport, and I did want to get a motorbike, but my father, who had ridden motorbikes in the second world war, said no. So the other alternative was a scooter. So I bought a lambretta – an LD150 lambretta. He found a scooter for me, and I bought it with money I had earned. This was in 1966 in Christchurch.

I was a 15 year old schoolboy, and you had to go to parties, and to work - I had after school jobs and holiday jobs.

I rode that for a couple of years and then I ran into problems with the driveshaft. I took it somewhere to be repaired, and then I ran into some strife trying to get it back from him. It was a motorcycle shop in Christchurch, and by this stage my father had died, and I didn't have the wherewithall to to get this shark to release the lambretta.

money – I took it in to be assessed, and he claimed he'd done work on it and that I owed him all this money.

It stayed in the shop. I never went back and got it.

I went and got a series one TV175 –still quite a big scooter. It went well, and then I came upon a slimline – the one that's still in the shed now. I bought in on the 11th June 1970. I sold the TV175 much later, when I was up in Palmerston North.

The scooter was imported from the states – it was USA new in 1962, and came into New Zealand in 1964. The first New Zealand owner was Timothy Speakman, of Colgate, in 1964. Then it was at McCleary Motors, then Miss Teresa Minehan of Montreal St, Scooter Motorcycle and Moped Services, and then Lesley Brian of Christchurch, then Tony Ebert.

I moved from Christchurch in 1974 –I bought it up with me, and had a 200 by then as well – a TV200. The series one was in parts at that stage.

Because I'd wanted a motorbike, and wanted more performance, the only option was to tune my scooter. I was working in a glasshouse, and an English woman also working there

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knew about this company in Britain that sold hot parts for lambrettas –Arthur Francis. I've still got the brochure and a parts list. You had to write letters – although there was a rudimentary fax system operating, through the Post Office, Bureaufax or something like that. There were some things that needed a signature quickly.

I wrote to them, they sent the catalogues and parts list (1969), and they also wrote with advice on what to get. So I imported all the bits – a special exhaust system, double engine mounts, larger piston (200), extra plate for the clutch, ball end levers, reverse pull for the disc brake, an After waiting for it to arrive, you had to go through Customs – anything attracted duty.

I put it all together, and it performed quite well. But there was nobody else about with hot scooters at that point, in Christchurch. I was getting to parties quicker! All my mates had cars – one had a truck. But there were times when three of us would get on the scooter and go to a party.

The longest trip I did on it was Christchurch to Greymouth, over

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Arthurs Pass. In those days, once you got past Springfield, most of it was shingle. There was a cabaret in Christchurch – New Zealand's first licenced cabaret – the Shoreline Country Club. The owner bought a hotel at Jackson, and I went there to work at the hotel. I was helping to renovate it, and also working as a barman. It's still there – Jackson's Pub.

By this stage I was at University, and I did a couple of track days at Ruapuna. It was a complete mismatch of bikes –there was nobody else on a hot scooter – it was mostly cars. There was one guy on a Greaves track racer, another on a Mack three kawasaki, one of the first 500 Kawasaki's, and a guy on a Vincent Black Lightning. I got beaten by everyone except the guy on the Kawasaki – the kawasaki wasn't running properly.

I finished at university and came up to Palmerston North in 1974, and by that stage, because I rode it flat out most places, I'd blown the seals out at the end of the crankshaft, so it wasn't running properly. I bought it up here, and because I had the 200, I've never ridden it since. It's been moved about as I moved houses. I did the 200 up and sold it much later.