Love this old pic I found online… Hampton Hill Post Office is just over the River Thames from me, and the last time I rode past it, hadn’t changed much! I’ll have to “streetview it” and see if it’s changed…
Category Archives: Lambretta Imagery
Great Vintage of imagery Lambrettas in Italy
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Fantastic collation of original Lambretta imagery from the City of Paola, in Calabria, Southern Italy. Put together by Paolo Perotta.
Donnie Photography
Donnie Canning is a Bedfordhire based wedding photographer … so if your in the Bedford, Luton, Dunstable or Leighton Buzzard area, and your planning on getting hitched, check out his website here. But it’s not his Wedding photography that caught my eye on Flickr, it’s the great scootering images, including the ones of Donnie on his fantastic looking Eibar Winter Model. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so I’ll shut up and let the pictures do the talking.
Check out the Donnie Photography website.
© All Rights Reserved Donnie Canning
Can YOU help track down Filtrate Lambretta pilot Marlene Parker?
Back in 1965, Marlene Parker, a 22 year old Bristol Taxi driver, was selected from 67 female applicants from across the country to ride a Lambretta scooter in Monza in Italy and break the world record. Marlene went on to ride the Filtrate sponsored Lambretta to a record beating 110 mph.
Now, nearly 50 years on, the team behind this record is reuniting… and they’ve even found the original machine, which in now in the hands of The Scooter Center, the German specialist scooter shop, who intent to completely rebuild it and return it to its former glory.
The only problem is nobody knows where Marlene is now. Robert Forest-Webb, who designed the machine and now lives in Hertfordshire, said “The only person missing, and who was probably the most important person of all, is Marlene. Does anyone know where she may be found? Can anyone help us? If you know, then please get in touch.”
The Bristol Post has got behind this story, and is helping try to track down Marlene. Their reporter, Emily Koch, would love to hear from you.You can Email her here, or phone her on 0117 934 3412.
Read more on the Bristol Post site.
Via The Scooter Fix Facebook page
UPDATE: In my eagerness to stick this post up, I didn’t realise the original Bristol Post article was from 2009… so it may well be that Marlene has been located. I’m attempting to follow up the story, if you know more (has it been in Scootering for instance, and I missed it) lat me know and I’ll run an update. Another one.
Lambretta Trike
Don’t know anything about this… I found it on Christian Dorat’s Facebook page, always an excellent source of fantastic Lambretta imagery, often featuring a scantily clad lady as a bonus prize! If you own this scoot, or know who does, please get in touch and tell me more.
Classic combo
A “leggy lovely” and a Lammy. After yesterday’s post on the LamSpurt or whatever it’s called, I thought I’d post something we could all agree was rather nice.
Moldovan Lambretta Police
Since I announced, perhaps prematurely, the demise of the Lambretta LN, and the launch of the LamSport, I’ve been sent a link to the Official Moldova Government Ministry of Internal Affairs webpage, announcing that the Police had been presented with ten Lambretta LN’s for ‘daily activity in public places’. Further info on the LN will follow, when I discover more!
Ancillotti Brothers TV225 conserved restoration
This is my third post about the work of The Rimini Lambretta Centre. I make no apologies for this, they produce first class work, and they are the acknowledged experts in the fine art of the “conserved restoration”. Coupled with there usually being an interesting story behind the work, and some great images, it’s a no brainer. So, on with the post, and what we have here is another fantastic job, on a small, but important piece of Lambretta history.
The owner, Marcello Taglialegne, picked up this machine, in a really sorry state, at a parts fair. Some nifty homework confirmed the sellers’ story that it was an Ancillotti original, and, although the bodywork was in a bad way, with a massive crack at the rear section of the frame, and the engine was missing, it was decide that this scooter MUST be saved! A ton of work was done. This included sourcing a NOS 200cc engine as originally used by the Ancillotti brothers, and a hand-made inlet manifold to house the unfeasibly large Dell’Orto that sticks out the side of this scoot like Satchmo’s horn. The other thing that draws your eye straight away on this unique Lambretta is the front mudguard, which looks like it’s on backwards! A point of ‘heated debate’ in the RLC workshop, it was the way Ancillotti originally did it, so it was going on like that. I kind of like it, and have certainly never seen anything like it before.
But my favourite part of this scoot is the seat. What a seat. Original to the scooter, and recovered, it sets the whole scoot of beautifully. The first time I ever heard the word Ancillotti was in relation to scooter seats (back in the day, it was that or a “Snetterton”) and this is the daddy of all Ancillotti racing seats. I want one like that!
For the full story of all the painstaking, period correct work that was carried out, and it’s quite a saga, but a good read; see the RLC website. There’s lots more pics of this fascinating scooter on there too.
Made in Taiwan
The following is thanks to my online pal Corey, of Ottawa, Ontario’s ScooterFix, who originally got material from the equally excellent British Lambretta Archive:
Regular readers of the Lambrettista blog will know I like an exotic Lambretta. The original Italian Innocenti’s are something special, obviously, and over recent years Indian machines have become first acceptable, then desirable in Lambretta circles. France still has a huge amount of French manufactured LC’s & LD’s on the road and the German NSU Lambretta’s have their aficionados. I’ve written about Brazilian Lambrettas before, and briefly on the Argentinian Siambretta when I posted about this amazing Model D twin. What I didn’t know a lot about, until I read Corey’s original post a while back was the Chinese connection. Well, Taiwan, but this little Island off of the People’s Republic of China still officially calls itself The Republic of China. Although, perhaps wisely considering the size and power of their neighbour, The ROC has not made the retaking of mainland China (which it still considers it’s sovereign territory), a political goal since 1992. 
Anyway. Back to the Lambrettas. In 1962 a technical agreement had been signed between Innocenti and the Yue Long Motor Co Ltd, of Taipei. It is not known if Yue Long manufactured complete scooters or just put together component parts. It is known that the Series 3 TV 175 were made by Yue Long and these came with a chrome ring. As with the Italian models, these were available with both Li and Special style panels. The frame numbers are distinctive in that they start with the prefix YLL, a dash then 175TV3 another dash – and then an 8 digit frame number. In terms of paint schemes we have seen photos of the Li panelled TVs in white with contrast colours on the horn cast and side panels and the Special panelled TV’s in silver.
No, it’s not a swastika with a missing leg – Yue Long stamped their products with a three legged symbol – similar to the Manx three legged symbol inside a circle.
The Yue Long Lambretta factory produced scooters in a huge plant. Rows of scooters have been completed, waiting for shipping.
Various publicity shots show visiting foreign dignitary’s being shown around the factory, Including The Central African Republic President Bo Kasa. History doesn’t record whether he took the Yue Long Lambretta Cento back to Africa with him!
Dominican Vice President Gao Yi Ge also visited…and apparently personally test rode the Lambrettas. Well, who could blame him?
Taiwan’s postmen were some of the coolest around, riding a fleet of green liveried TV’s!
So, are you a resident of Taiwan? I know they blog has readers in the ROC (132 views from Taiwan before this post)! Are there still any Yue Long Lambrettas still around? If there are…or if your mum or dad had a Lambretta (maybe he was a postman!) get in touch and show me, and the Lambretta world, the pics!
UPDATE: I have found this Facebook Group for all Lambretta scooter enthusiasts in Taiwan and their friends, and for owners of Lambrettas that were manufactured in Taiwan. Some great pics on there!
Lambretta. Not a ‘Kronenbourg’
Viz’s “Roger’s Profanisaurus” (Surely one of the finest, most creative works in the english language) defines a Kroneburg (sic) thus ” A lady who appears from behind to be about ’16’, but reveals herself to be about ’64’ when she turns around “. Gentlemen, we’ve all been there. Well, there are scooters like that. Look ok from the back, look pants from the front (Peugeot S57 / Terrot VMS1 you know I’m talking about you), or vice-versa.
Luckily, riding a Lambretta, it’s something you don’t have to worry about. As this publicity shot shows. Ok, it’s an SX, but all Lambrettas look equally as good from the front and rear.
Bonus tip; to make your arse look slimmer if you’ve put on a pound or two over the years… is to go for one of the more voluptuous models, like a S1 or 2. Works for me.
lambrettista.net 