Tag Archives: archive

Lambretta Locomociones

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Pictures from the Spanish Lambretta Factory in Eibar

A couple of posts back, I wrote about the Lambretta Amiga – the last throw of the dice for the Serveta factory in the Spanish Basque country (here). I gave a short potted history of the Spanish Lambrettas – Reader Darrin Slack got in touch, and shared some fantastic images he had of the Eibar factory (I said he had shared a bunch of great content with me, didn’t I – stay tuned – there’s more to come).The pictures below are of the purpose-built factory that started building scooters in 1954 – just two years after a group of Basque businessmen obtained a licence from Innocenti to build Lambrettas in Spain.

The Drawing office –
Tube bending machines – making the frames for the scooters
Sidepanels coming out of the hydraulic press – who knew that they were made in pairs?
Legshields being finished – note the distinctive turning front mudguard of the Winter Model in the foreground, and stacked up on the left hand side of the image.

The Basque factory was very successful – initially catering to the domestic Spanish market… as can be seen in the image below, they made at least 3 million machines…

Thanks again to Darrin for the fantastic images. If you’re interested in finding out more about Spanish Lambrettas – check out this site Serveta is Betta.

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Vintage Scooter Pics from LIFE

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I don’t know exactly what’s doing on here… but there are some clues. Firstly the location is  clearly San Fransisco… and specifically the Golden Gate Bridge. I wonder if any of my US readers remember the Berkley Scooter Shop? On the front of one the TV’s there’s a badge for “Al (Second name unreadable)* San Francisco” is also the pic of Warren Carver… who, his badge is “Road Captain” of the Pioneer Scooter Club, SF. Though I reckon he really wanted to be in the California Highway Patrol… Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (4) 8efb9f3faeba3a50_largeMotor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (2) 87d5af60a7c00277_large 299d58ebc547b539_large 111333d3f3c6f90c_large f84f5c6407c9b509_large Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (1)  Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (3)  Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (5) Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (6) 3aea680563a33803_largeMotor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (8) Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (9) Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (12) Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (13) Motor Scooter Squabble in California, ca. 1960s (20) The event looks like some sort of protest… I’m guessing from the pic of the dude on the Vespa, and the signage, it’s something to do with banning motorcycles from certain roads. There’s a couple of pics of people looking at maps trying to figure out alternative routes.

7ba10bfeb2928fc3_largeAnyway, the pics are great, and found over at the LIFE archive, they are by N. R. Farbman and I found them via the Vintage Everyday blog.

*It’s Al Fergoda, thanks for the info, regular contributor Corey, from Scooter Fix! on his Facebook page there is an impressive collection of dealer decal imagery that has a great pic of the Al Fergoda sticker. And from a little bit of internet research it seems Al Fergoda was a big name in North California, back in the day, as well as being a Lambretta dealer, also specialising in BSA, Norton and eventually Yamaha marques.

Vintage footage of Lambrettas racing at Thruxton

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This great bit of scootering history has just been posted on YouTube… The Lambretta Club of Great Britain racing at the Thruxton circuit in Hampshire, back in 1969. I’m assuming they hired the circuit for the day… they seem like they had a decent membership back in the day! The footage features several  names that may be familiar to aficionados of the racing scene, Roy Bradford, Nev Frost, and the Ronald Brothers.

GP225WildCat has posted a number of other South Devon Lambretta Club vids on YouTube, all of which are well worth checking out! There is even more great stuff over at the Retrobubble website, mainly from the late ’50s to the 70’s, but some 80’s stuff too. All available to buy on DVD. As I have only just discovered this site myself, a full ‘review’ will be forthcoming, shortly!