Café Scooteria

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Lovin this full service coffee cart in the Sonoma Valley, California.
Via The Sonoma Valley Sun. Built by Sorento Motors.

Ever wish you had a spare £16 Grand?

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I know, silly question. But I do, right now. There’s somebody on eBay selling this delightful, and pretty rare Lambretta Model D sidecar combination. Which looks as close to concours as you’d want. I’ve recently started compiling a ‘dream garage’ list of Lambretta’s I’d love to own, and a D is right up there. As is a Lambretta sidecar combo, but I’d never put the two together in my head. There are several nice touches to the setup that really work well, I love the chrome legshield trim on the scoot, as well as the spare wheel carrier with integrated petrol tank, a lovely original (looking anyway) item with the innocenti logo. The luggage rack on the sidecar and the front bumper bar on the D are nice too. It also comes with optional “butty box’ behind the fitted petrol tank, something I suspect is an expensive addition if you need to source an original one. Another nice touch is the matching saddles and leather trim on the sidecar. Class. The only thing that really jars is the wheel embellisher on the sidecar. I think I’d either lose that and paint the wheel to match the bodywork, or paint the blue part of the embellisher to match the saddles. But who am I to be so picky! It’s sitting at a not inconsequential £8k at the moment, which seems a tad on the high side to me, but if it’s the sort of rare, early Lambretta that floats your boat, it might be right up your alley. Link here.

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The other £8k would be going to the same bloke… clicking the “see sellers other items” link brought up a lovely Fiat 500 D. Nice, although again, probably a little on the high side price wise. Link here.
He does appear to have listed both items twice.

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Cushty Custom Cushman

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If the Russian Tula I posted the other day doesn’t appeal, howsabout something from the other side of the cold war. Filed under “it’s not a Lambretta, but it’s pretty darn cool” department… I bring you this lovely custom Cushman. Cushman scooters hail from the good old US of A, and while many european scooters tried to ape the lovely curves of the Lambretta and Vespa, with varying degrees of success, Cushman plowed their own furrow.

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Instead of a set french curves, the designer used a good old ruler. 
This example dates back to 1960, and is a customised Model 520. The customisation is pretty tastefully done, some nice pinstriping, a ’59 Cadillac tailight, and the dice detailing on that mysterious lever on the left side of the scooter. (I think it opens the engine compartment). It’s the epitome of the 1950’s Vegas Loungebar aesthetic, scooter style!
Better than all that, it’s for sale, here, so if you’ve got the yen for something different, and the Soviet Tula, stick an offer in. Oh, and if the model looks kinda familiar to you, you’re probably thinking of that Bo Diddley LP cover…

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MCN Reviews the new Lambretta

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And finds it ‘perfectly good’ but about £1,500 overpriced. Read the full review here.

Back in Vogue

Mod photoshoot Video for Italian Vogue. All the credits are at the end of the video, apart from, strangely, the music. Which is by The Eyes… I’m rowed out.

From Russia with love

We all know you can’t beat a classic Lambretta, but if you’ve got a yen for something a litlle different in the classic scooter stakes, how about this lovely Tula 200cc scoot from the former Soviet Union. 
Very much in lin1950’s Teutonic style coachwork… a huge front mudguard reminiscent of a Hienkel, but the rear very similar to the Glas Gogo… this was a beast designed to cope with the worst that the Russian winters could throw at it.
On eBay now for a grand, classified price.

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Lambretta Caterham Video

Posted about this car a while back. Here’s a video.
See if you can find some more info on the Caterham website, I’m buggered if I can.

New Scomadi renderings

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I posted a couple of weeks ago about the Scomadi Turismo Leggera, and Frank from Lambretta Innovations got in touch. There’s exciting developments afoot, and he’s shared these renderings of the new carbon fibre panel work with me that the actual material the next batch will be made from is a fibre matrix – the same struff that crash helmets are made from.  Light and super strong. As carbon fibre is not the ideal material to paint over, they are being produced in a range of traditional Lambretta colours ie yellow ochre, orange, light blue, and white. 

They’ve also purchased 25 engines from Piaggio, so it looks like production is beginning to ramp up.
And if you own a Scomadi, please let me know what you think, send me some pics, and I’ll pop them up!

If you missed Lambretta Innovation IOW they are at the Mersea Island rally this weekend.

 

The Smite – a modern reincarnation of the classic Messerschmitt bubble car

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I posted about this little beauty on my other blog, here, ages ago. Then it all went a bit quiet. … nothing. No updates on the website, nada. Until I spotted a link to this video on Facebook. I seriously want one of these… it would ‘go’ so well with my Series 2…The colour even matches (in the video). I’ll keep you updated if I hear more!

The official Smite website (hasn’t been updated for a while)
And Smite on Facebook  (a better bet for more up-to-date stuff)

Bear with me… I’m struggling to embedd the video into this post. Until I do here’s a link to it: SMITE Video

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Lambretta LD Paper Model

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Cut out and make your own Lambretta LD… found this over at the International Scooterist BBS one of there members  got it off of the Sydney City Scooter Club site.

Anyways, it makes a pretty cool model of a Lambretta LD. Well, the sharper eyed amongst you will have noticed the NSU branding, so technically, it’s a NSU Prima. But as the early Prima’s were officially licensed, ‘badge engineered’ (and somewhat improved in some opinions) Teutonic versions of the Lambretta LD we all know and love, I think it still counts as a Lammie.

The instructions are in German, but seriously, how hard can it be? Especially if you’ve ever taken a real one apart. If you do things by the book, there’s always Google translate!