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!
Came across this pukka 1958 NSU Prima 150D on Gumtree. At A$3000… it’s a deal, it’s a steal, it’s sale of the flipping’ century… as ever, just flagging it up not recommending, buyer beware and all that yada yada yada.
It’s in Adelaide, South Australia. Here’s the Gumtree Link.
I’ll get back to posting about real Lambretta’s soon, promise!
Enjoy riding your noisy, dirty, smelly 2stroke while you can ladies and gentlemen. It’s just a matter of time before classic scooters are consigned to “collections” and legislated out of existence… and we’ll all be sitting in our robot driven hydrogen fuel-celled Google cars… maybe. Or maybe the future is electric vehicles… we’ve already seen an Electric Lambretta… and a production scooter from a company with a heritage in classic scoots and electric vehicles is on the way. Albeit a heritage I had absolutely no idea about until yesterday.
First, a bit of history
Lohner was an Austrian company. G’day! No. Read it again. Austrian. Around 1900 they were producing electric cars… designed by a certain Ferdinand Porsche. Ahead of the curve there! After a rocky history, and diversifying into many other vehicles such as trams and aircraft… like many companies in the early fifties tried to get in on the booming scooter market. The most well known of these scooters was the Lohner 125 (pictured above). I say it was well known… but it’s a scooter that’s new to me. To my eyes… despite following the germanic “roller” style of having the large enclosed front end incorporating the legshields and mudguard… I’ve seen uglier scooters. After merging with Rotax, who made the engines, they left scooter production behind and became involved in the production of agricultural, military and commercial vehicles. Eventually they were bought by Bombardier.
Now, the future?
Well, the Lohner name, and scooter is back. From what I can gather from the website, members of the original Lohner family are still very much involved. And in looking to the future they looked to their company heritage for inspiration. What they have come up with is a “new class vehicle”… the Lohner Stroler… a radical looking e-biike – and probably of more interest to readers of this blog, the Lohner LEA. The Roller LEA is a twenty-first century reincarnation of the 1950’s original L125-Roller. 
Pretty cool, huh? It’s got that retro thing going with a hint modern hot-rod aesthetic… while giving a big nod to their heritage. A tough trick to pull off, looking funky, modern and old school all at once.
The LEA will go into production in the spring, and is a available for pre-order right now.
Find out more, including full specifications on the website.
Well, not your actual Rolls Royce motor car. But a rather nicely restored Heinkel Tourist scooter… (or motorroller as our Teutonic friends would have it… so I guess it’s a Roller of sorts) was originally marketed as the “Rolls Royce of Scooters”. Naturally, it’s not quite as “pretty” as a Lammy… but it has got a voluptuous attractiveness all of it’s own. And like the seller says “very nice machines to own and run, and they are a bit different” It’s got a classified price of a fiver under £4k, which is a lot of scooter for your buck. Check it out on eBay here.
Here’s that eBay link again.
I came across this absolutely stunning, fully restored 1972 Bond Bug on eBay Here. I’ve written about these iconic little vehicles before… (follow the link in the Quasar post!). In the seventies they looked straight from the future …and they still look like they are from some “Space 1999” alternative future (I know that 1999 is in the past, but you get my point!). I showed this post to my nine year old son and he said “Cool! Why don’t they make cars like that today?” Good question!
I honestly don’t think I’ve stumbled across anything on eBay that I’ve immediately wanted so much… Lambrettas included! A snip at a quid under £13k. I’m buying a lottery ticket on the off chance.
Here’s the eBay link again.
I’ve read a couple of derogatory reports on the upcoming ( and upcoming fast ) Scomadi’s. They’re just cheap Chinese plastic autos. They’re a badge engineered Hanway – a Chinese manufacturer of mopeds, scooters and motorcycles… and one I’d never even heard of until recently. The pic above proves it… as does the Hanway website others showing the very familiar looking Hanway TL Models…
Well, not quite. It’s the other way round I suspect. The Scomadi scooters are the culmination of over ten years of development by PM Tuning and Lambretta Innovations… the result of many prototypes and hard work, to achieve the vision of a reliable modern scooter with traditional Lambretta styling. Starting off with built to order ‘specials’ Scomadi has now made the step to mass production, and the world being the way it is, to keep costs reasonable they have chosen to make the machines in China, partnering with Hanway. I’m guessing as part of the deal Hanway get to manufacture and sell the Scomadi under their own name in certain territories.
I understand that the Scomadi isn’t perfect. And it’s not my job to be a flagbearer for it. Perfect would be a innovative 2T engine that did 200 miles to the gallon, over 100mph, had a steel body, was made in Italy, and costing about £2k. But that aint ever going to happen. If you buy into the idea of a modern Lambretta the Scomadi is a pretty good effort.
Anyhoo… this video from the Scomadi Facebook page makes the point better than I ever could… (Just a link at the moment, when I figure out how to embed it, I will!
I’ve always loved these little British bubble cars. The 50cc Peel P50 (above), famously driven around the BBC offices at White City by Jeremy Clarkson (and John Humphrys) for Top Gear took the microcar concept to it’s logical conclusion, and gained a Guinness World Record for being the smallest car in the world. Well, you may have heard that the Peel is back. Available in an original 50cc moped engined version, and now a 1.5Kw electric version, it’s made appearances on Dragons Den and Cadbury’s Adverts.
Since the apparent demise of the Messerschmitt-alike Smite concept, it’s the space age Trident that would be my microcar of choice. With it’s fifties flying saucer looks, it’s going to turn heads wherever you go. Originally designed as a shopping car, it was classed as a ‘saloon scooter’. The new electric version is fully road legal in the UK. The only fly in the ointment, and its a rather big, Jeff Goldblum sized fly, is it’s range… a measly 15 miles on a full charge. I’d expect it to make it to at least Saturn. 
If you fancy your very own Peel Trident, proudly made in Britain, there’s an handful of them left, with prices starting from £12,999. So, not all that cheep to buy, but incredibly cheap to run… as they say, almost cheaper than walking 🙂
Find out more on the Peel Engineering website.
A bit of an ugly ducking scooter here… certainly compared to the lovely lines of a Lambretta (or even a V*spa)! To be fair, if you’re not looking at the scooter from the front, it doest look too bad. The saving grace of the Cezeta is a large luggage compartment under the seat… gained by moving the petrol tank to that big nose over the front wheel, just above the headlight. Hmmm. But if you fancy something a bit different you can get your hands on this Czechoslovakian oddball over at that famous internet auction site. It’s certainly a head turner! Cezeta scooter on eBay
Cezeta scooter on eBay
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I’m not really a “modern scooter” person. But, and again, I’ve mentioned this before, there are some exceptions. The most notable is probably the Honda Ruckus, or Zoomer as it is known in he UK. In the same vein, The DonGo is a back to basics, stripped down scoot that is easy to build, customise, maintain and repair.
The idea is that you buy it “flat pack” like Ikea furniture, and put it together yourself. You can spec either a petrol or electric engine. At the moment, I it’s just a concept, at prototype stage… in need of investment to turn into a scoot you can actually buy. If I was a “Dragon” I’d be saying “I’m in” to designer Otto Polefko. I’d love to see this on sale.
via YankoDesign. More on the Otto’s Behance page, here.
The film title says Hong Kong Teddy Boys… but they’re not quite Teds as I remember them. Seriously cool scooters, whatever they are… can anybody Id them (the scooters, not the actors!)?
Form HK Rockers on Vimeo
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