Monthly Archives: November 2013

Ancillotti Bros. Interview

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Ancillotti Lambretta 4Ancillotti Lambretta1Ancillotti Lambretta 8 I discovered this fantastic interview with Lambretta legends the Lambretta legends the Acillotti brothers… How they got started in scootering, Vespa’s verus Lambretta’s and their rivalry with Gori. Illustrated with a great looking racing scoot, it’s an interesting read, even when translated by Google from the original Italian.

Read it here on The Racing Lambrettas Site

UPDATE: Paolo Catani, the gent behind the Racing Lambretta site, has pointed me in the direction of an  english version of the original interview, here. It certainly reads much better than the Google translation.

My favourite quote, (one that Google didn’t quite do justice); “It’s not true that it was Lambretta v. Vespa : that’s a false myth. It was always Lambretta against Lambretta because to race against a Vespa would have been a one-sided challenge” Quite.

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New Twitter Handle!

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Mr Lambrettsita Twitter AvatarI’ve got a new Twitter handle (why handle? Is it only used on Twitter and CB radio? How weird!) It’s  @MrLambrettista and, if you do the Twitter thing I’d love you to follow me their. This is going to be 100% (well maybe 95%) scooter and scooter lifestyle related. Once I’ve got a bit of critical mass, I’ll start deleting the scootering links from my other twitter account (@crocodilejock) and just use that for my art, graphic design, typography, brand and marketing related posts (my day job). If that sort of stuff interests you, I’d love to keep you as followers here. Sorry if this all seems a little convoluted, but it will all start getting confusing if I leave it much longer. It also makes sense to link up the blog, the Facebook page and the twitter account under one ‘brand’.

So the long and short of it is, I’d love you to follow me on @MrLambrettista and a big thank you to the 68 people that have followed me already!

Nice pipe.

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9673432f28efecd002e34a7f0025ff64Clobber? Check. Scooter? Check. Pipe?  Maybe lose the pipe. Though sucking a thoughtful pipe immediately makes you look more intelligent. Ok. Keep the pipe. Maybe I should get one…

If anybody know who this is, or who took the shot I will happily credit them.

Flakey Framebreather

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$_57MetalFlakey that is. I think this is what you’d call a ‘real bobby dazzler’ gold and copper metalflake on S1 Framebreather. Spotted this on beauty on eBay… it’s in just finished condition and got a Stage 4, 200cc engine in, so the performance won’t be a let down. I know this is a late 50’s scoot… but for me, it’s got a bit of a 70’s vibe about it. In a good way. If Brian Connolly rode a Lammy, it would look like this. A Sweet ride.$_57-4 $_57-2 $_57-3 $_57You like? Buy it on eBay here. Go on, treat yourself.

Matched set

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Screen Shot 2013-11-27 at 15.03.44  Escort RS200There’s some nice machines in the Britanny Ferries sponsored Retrozone at the Motorcycle Live. The star of the stand is clearly the “matching pair” of a ’64 150 Special and a ’74 Mk1 Escort RS2000… what a classic combo. There are also a brace of “Fizzies” and Fizzy competitors  from Suzuki and Honda. All bikes I didn’t rate too highly ‘back in the day’ but they seem to have improved with age… or I’ve mellowed.

The Motorcycle Live show is on at the NEC, Birmingham, until the 1st of December.

Lambrettista. Now with added Facebookyness.

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Lambrettista-FacebookHeaderIn exciting developments today*, it was announced that the Lambrettista blog (this one) was getting it’s own Facebook page. It’s here. So you can follow, like, Share and do all that stuff there, too. The WordPress blog  aint going anywhere, and it’s where most of the detail will be… but I was getting a hell of a lot of traffic from Facebook, (Especailly when the nice people at Scomadi and The Rimini Lambretta Centre linked to my posts on their FB pages) it’s silly not too.

Pop over and “Like” me on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/LambrettistaBlog

*I know, it’s not exciting to anyone. Except me. A bit.

The $200,000 Lambretta

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Screen Shot 2013-11-27 at 16.56.57Well, $209,000 actually. But when you’re spending that much, the $9k in pocket change. Anyway, it’s (another) “Jimmy” replica (from Quadrophenia). That’s right. You read it correctly… it’s not even the ORIGINAL scooter from the film… that one (this one) sold for a mere £36,ooo back in June. But, in case I’m sounding a little unenthusiastic about it, there was an excellent reason this scoot fetched so much… it was for a good cause… the (RED)  Charity… in an auction curated by Apple’s head of design Sir Jonatan Ive. And it is signed by Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend. Ok, so it’s a true “pop icon”, I can see the appeal. And you could buy  half a dozen absolutely top notch Lammies for the price of this one. Make that a dozen. But that’s not the point is it

If yore interested in the actual scooters that were in the film, there’s is an excellent site, VCB160 that tracks the history of the two main scooters in Quadrophenia; Jimmy’s Lambretta and Sting’s “GS” Vespa (which is actually a Vespa Rally, made to look like a GS).

via ScooterFile

Original Innocenti Twin SX200 prototype being restored by the RLC

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Innocenti Twin 7Twin cylinder Lambretta’s are something most Lambrettisti have at least heard of, if not seen in the flesh. The most well known being the 250cc Targa Twin engines. What some people maybe don’t realise is this engine is based on a Innocenti original… and prototype twin cylindered SX200’s were developed and built in Milan.

Innocenti Twin 4Two of these ultra rare beasts are owned by Lambretta maestro Vittorio Tessera, (head of Casa Lambretta, author of many Lambretta books), one of which is on display in his Lambretta Museum. The other? It had the engine removed years ago, and hasn’t run since it left Innocenti. But all that is going to change.

Innocenti Twin 3Impressed with the painstaking “conserved restoration” The Rimini Lambretta Centre carried out on the original 1960 Roma Olympics Series 2, (see my previous post about these beauties), Sig. Tessera commisioned  Dean and the team at the RLC to do a similar job on the twin. As pretty much a “one off” – it differs significantly in configuration from it’s contemporaneous partner – it presents an immense challenge; but one that the RLC are more than a match for. This is one to watch. I can’t wait to see, and hear, this historic machine running.

BIG thanks to Dean from the RLC, for helping me put this post together, and proofing my ramblings.

Find out more on the Rimini Lambretta Site.

Lambretta Shot

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KeithNairn-LambrettaS1Not a lot to add to this, but a nice shot of a nice scoot. By Keith Nairn, on Flickr, his photostream is worth checking out if you, like me, like classic bikes (some nice Laverdas for instance) and other mechanical ‘boys toys’.

keithnairn’s photostream

Mad Bixby Moto’s Deathdealer II Scootercycle with Sidecar

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No, it’s not a Lammie. But it looks a lot of fun. The result of a “build-off” competition run by Dues Customs, and made from a Honda Z50 found in a skip, and a junked engine from a Chinese scooter, along with a bunch of other scrap (total budget $158), produced this wonderfully original little machine. The “hilarious” video (you may want to substitute the word “hilarious” with the word “annoying”) shows the scoots capabilities off pretty well. Although I preferred to watch it with the sound off after about 30 seconds, although I may just be experiencing a temporary sense of humour failure.BixbyMoto1 BixbyMoto2Bixby Moto specialise in monkey bikes, customs and racers… check out their website here. There’s some lovely little beasties on there.

Via Scooterfile,