Gary sent me some pics of himself and a bunch of mates from Aberdeen… a loose affiliation of lambretta lovers from the Granite City who call themselves the LCA whenever they meet up. This is just a few of the bunch, but there’s some seriously nice scoots there!
Gary’s currently resident in Vietnam, and scooted up to the Da Nang Rally last month, an excellent run… and looks like there’s a wee bit more sunshine than in Aberdeen, eh Gary?
Now this is a pic! Bit of a dude on a homemade skelly… all er, “accessories” look very improvised. And I kinda love it!
Those of you who’ve been paying attention may have noticed a “lull’ in blog updates of late, sorry about that other commitments/events have taken priority lately. But I’ll be back with new content as soon as poss. KTF.
Ok, so I promised you a post on the Rimini Lambretta Centre’s 25th Anniversary Open Day… and it’s coming. But there’s a scooter adventure that’s going on as I type that you should probably know about… Sticky’s on another of his “European Tours”. On a 1968 Lambretta. Partly because he loves Lambrettas, but also because doing this on a motorcycle would be too easy. As he says “The discomfort and unreliability of a vintage scooter adds an element of uncertainty and adventure to the trip. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.”
Heading out from his home town of Nuneaton on the 1st of the month… after being seen off by the Mayor… he’s heading round Europe (Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, The Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands… phew, I’m exhausted typing that lot, never mind riding it!)
And there’s a big idea behind the trip – Twinning – and to quote the man himself “The idea is to explore the concept of town twinning, and to link the towns involved by acting as a courier delivering photographs from local newspapers and councils to their twins and sisters in other countries.” His long term goal is to write another book about his experiences (If you haven’t read Frankenstein Scooters to Dracula’s Castle you’ve missed a treat).
As I type, he’s in the Pyrenees, heading towards Roanne in France, before heading off to Italy. He’s spending at least one day and one night in each town he visits. Check out his route below, and if you can give him any support in your country (I know I have readers in all of them!), please do! You might even end up featuring in his next book! Check out the full story on his website StickyFeatures.co.uk and follow him on Twitter @StickyFeatures or on his blog for the latest news.
I’ll keep you informed of anything I hear of his adventures, and show you his route back when he completes the first part of his journey.
Good luck fella… ride safe, and I hope your trip doesn’t have too much discomfort and unreliability!
Just a quick, preliminary post, mainly to say what a great event this was. There was a really good turn out, at least a couple of hundred Lambrettas… and Dean and the gang from the RLC made sure everyone was looked after properly. As I type this a lot of the attendees will be sipping the odd cold beverage or throwing some shapes on the dance floor. Unfortunately, I had to get back to Bologna, as I’ve booked a flight home early doors. Pretty poor planning on my part that. Anyway boys and girls enjoy your evening, and thank you, very much for asking me to come out. If you can’t wait for my words and pictures, check out the event’s Facebook Page, here. Buonanotte!
Found this great looking unrestored 1960 LI online… I wish I’d found it in a barn! 
It’s up for auction at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire on the 15th of April, with a guide price of £1,000 – £1,500 (which seems about right). It would benefit from a sensitive, “conserved restoration”. It comes with some nice original period accessories… and you can use that white top box to keep some bits in, in your garage. Or bin it. If you’re interested, you can find out more here.
Loving this. Cracking little LD on eBay that was restored back in the 80’s… that has mellowed nicely. Sometimes a newly restored scooter can look fantastic, but to my eyes a little too “new”. And while I increasingly like a bit of ‘patina’ (we used to call it rust, back in the day) a nice, clean machine is hard to beat. I think you get the best of both worlds with this scoot. Not so pristine you’d be scared to ride her, nice enough to want to wash and wax at the weekend!
She comes with some great period accessories, which lift the scoot from stock; the whitewalls, sidepanel stars (I’m not always keen on these, but they just “work” on this scoot) alloy airscoops, hub and fork trim, original NSU clock and original speedo. All things that add to the appeal of the scooter, rather than spoiling the lovely lines. Very nice. If I had any room in the garage, or money in the bank, Id be putting a bid in on her! If you feel the same way you can put a bid in on eBay here.
A wise man once said that true wisdom is knowing how little you actually know. Or something like that. I thought I knew a little bit about Lambrettas, but the more I find out, the more I realise how much my ‘knowledge’ is just scraping the surface. Thats why I always appreciate being put right if I’ve made an error. Sometimes, I know I’ve made a mistake, because it’s glaringly obvious. On other occasions it’s a real eye-opener. Either way, not a problem I’ve learnt something. Anyway, the point of this long and rambling preamble is that I know next to nothing about Lambros. I’ve seen a few course, and pictures of many of them. They come up for sale occasionally on eBay (there’s some up at the moment… more on them later). And while I have posted about Willam microcars, and even the dinky Minky, I’ve only posted a couple of links to Lambro’s I’ve spotted for sale… and not written about them much on the site.
About all I know about these wonderfully characterful little vehicles is, that A) they were extremely adaptable, with variants ranging from simple pickups and delivery vans, to cement mixers and fire engines… or tipper trucks, like the one pictured. B) They were the Lambretta equivalent of the Vespa Ape C) they were named after the Lambro river that ran outside the Innocenti factory and D) I quite fancy one.
When compiling my “websites, forums, mags & blogs” links page (check it out if you haven’t already) I came across a couple of Lambro specific sites. One, lambro.plus.com has sadly not been updated for a while, although there is a lot of useful info on there. The second one, TheLambro.com is more well maintained, and also has wealth of useful information. It is also the online presence for the UK’s only dedicated Lambro workshop, where they offer everything from full restorations to servicing and MOT work. They often seem to have a couple for sale, and also have a varied stock of parts for most models.
With prices of even the more humbler Lambretta models climbing ever higher, the humble Lambro remains remarkably affordable. OK, it’s not as stylish, and you’ll never blaat about on one (although, funnily enough I have seen Vespa Ape racing). But they’re a pretty cool, quirky vehicle, especially if you have a small business to promote. And you get a roof. The one pictured in this post is available on eBay for a classified price of £2,695. She needs a bit of work to get her back on the road, but is a pretty rare model, and an easy resto. Here’s the eBay link
Back in the day, the easiest way to “customise” your Lammie, was to take the side panels off, and unbolt anything you could… to create a “skelly”. This, along with bolting on a big bore exhaust was also done in pursuit of an elusive extra couple of miles per hour…
As with all these things, there are different levels of “getting it right” and this skinhead style skelly has plenty of authentic 70’s style touches… the megaphone exhaust, sidewinder seat and wooden running boards all giving it a the proper skin/suedehead feel.
The TS1 225 lump should give it plenty of poke, with a hydraulic front break to bring it to a safe stop.
Model D’s seem to come up fairly regularly, but it’s precdessor, the C, is a much rarer beast. There’s one on eBay that looks pretty good… somebody has a go with a spray gun a few years ago, but it looks like it wouldn’t take much to get this open frame classic back to head turning condition. There’s some great period accessories that come as part of the deal… they’ll need a bit of tlc too, but you could end up with something truly unique. Check it out on eBay here
I’ve written about these little lambretta powered microcars a couple of times before… (here and here if you’re interested). One of my readers, Olivier, has flagged up that there’s one for sale over on this french auction site, sitting at under a thousand Euros at the moment. So if your looking for something a little bit different, with four wheels rather than two, and you fancy a trip to central France, check it out!
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