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Monthly Archives: May 2017

An Olympian Trip

Posted on May 22, 2017 by admin Posted in News Stories .
A long time ago -maybe 1980, myself and my oldest friend, Mark, went on a mini scooter run to a place called Chobham in Surrey in the south east of England, perhaps thirty miles from London. To be honest, it could have been Cobham, also in the same county. I get confused. In fact, I think Mark got confused too but we reached our destination anyway; a visit to see his country cousins, who turned out to be a couple of bikers and must have been amused to see our scooters wheezing and farting their way into view.
Mark’s PX was a 200E and could easily leave mine in the dust (a 150cc). It can’t have been long after this that Mark painted an Inspector Clouseau on the sidepanels and earned his nickname of ‘The Inspector’. Mark also owned an Olympus Trip camera, of which I was very very jealous. How come he got all the good gear? It’s hard to believe how time-consuming and expensive photography was back then -and you never really knew what the shots would be like until you got the prints back from the chemist. You’d be lucky to get to your front door without a couple of hundred photographs being taken now. And I mean from the inside. These photos are precious.
The ‘Soft Drinks’ shot was taken at a petrol station -and that’s all I remember. Good innit? I don’t think I’ve changed a bit…

 

 

869 Comments .
Tags: mod, PX150, PX200E, rally, rideout, scooter, vespa .

Lambrettista à Paris

Posted on May 19, 2017 by admin Posted in News Stories .
Paris City of Love retro stylish poster by Kevin McSherry at Scooterola.

Paris City of Love retro stylish poster by Kevin McSherry at Scooterola.

Thirty years ago, I fell in love with and subsequently married a Frenchwoman from Paris. She has put up with my daft enthusiasms (Darling; I want to make my life about art!) and screwy business ventures for all that time. She has staying power, I can tell you that much.
 The above art dwells in fantasy-land, where all we men look like the young Alain Delon and women look as if they just undulated off the catwalk. This is where advertisers get you; They sell you what you already want. Of course, I’m a fifty-something grey-haired galoot and look like a cross between William Haig and the Michelin Man but we can dream…and Michelin is French, n’est-ce pas?
It goes without saying that my darling wife is just as beautiful, stylish and youthful as the day I met her carrying her poodle outside Les Galeries Lafayette when I pulled up on my Lambretta to adjust my pocket square and shades.
Poster in various sizes from the Scooterola online magasin.
Tags: 1960s, 60s, advertising, blue, chic, eiffel, fashion, france, french, italian, lambretta, paris, poster, red, scooter, style, swinging, travel, vespa .

A Saved Soul

Posted on May 11, 2017 by admin Posted in News Stories .
Kevin McSherry on Vespa ET4 scooterola reto prints

Kevin McSherry on Vespa ET4

Now let me tell you how I came by my current scooter and how I rekindled my love for all things Vespacious and Lambrettonian -and frankly, mod. I’ll tell you of my brush with the dark side first, for you must know that once, quite recently and for a year, I owned a Suzuki Burgman 650 Executive…nicknamed the Burgervan, unsurprisingly.

Now I certainly am not an executive of any description. I bought this beast to go the hundred miles to Wexford to visit my lovely mother without commandeering the car from my wife who needs it. This scooter was a beast. God knows how much it weighed but it surely was on the way to Goldwing territory.  Something I never admitted to the chap from whom I bought it is that when I took it for a test ride around his estate, I actually dropped it while trying to turn in the street. I thought I’d never lift it back up and that I’d have to go and ask him to help. Fortunately, I did manage to haul it back up and return it. He must’ve wondered why I was all red-faced and sweaty. The point is -for all its power and comfort, it had no soul. It was just a massive hunk of metal and plastic that could go 120kph with no difficulty.

But I’ll get back to that; at the same time I had a Vespa ET4, which I really liked. Piaggio did a super job on styling, I think. Many Vespa aficionados don’t seem to like them and will not countenance them as true Vespas. I have a friend who is contemptuous of them, saying that Piaggio have departed from  the original designer Corradino D’Ascanio’s vision. That’s true -they’re 4 stroke, you can’t change a wheel at the side of the road as there is no spare anyway, a puncture can’t be fixed with a bicycle repair kit and when something goes wrong with the electronics, you need a PHd-level mechanic with a computer to get them going again. But current emissions laws have to be satisfied and the vintage ones simply can’t do that.

Anyway, I think the industrial designers at Piaggio have done a brilliant job in making their scooters look like a natural progression of style -they’ve maintained the soul and in that sense, they’ve succeeded. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that D’Ascanio could never have dreamed that his machines built to be practical workhorses would turn out to be so iconic and so loved all over the world as icons of a particular style – with original early machines still highly sought after and cherished by their owners.

And on the other hand, there are many owners of original beautiful machines who have thoroughly departed from the vision -by turning them into choppers or Christmas trees. I always thought that the design was simple and elegant and never required modification beyond a paint job and a few other accessories.

But I digress; I was sitting in the pub one evening and a friend asked me if I wanted a scooter as another mutual friend had one sitting in his garden that he wanted to get rid of. Since space is limited in my garage and I already had one, I declined, with images of a rusty wreck in my mind. Furthermore, It could have been something like a Honda Vision, which has no redeeming features at all. A few months later, he brought the subject up again and I decided to take a look with the proviso that if I didn’t want it, I’d leave it there.

A few days later, I took a look and was surprised that it was a PX that seemed to be in pretty good order, despite having been left in a garden for nine years. I jumped at the chance to take it back home. There was no key (stolen apparently), and the steering lock was on so myself and a mate had to lift it onto a trailer.

Another friend who’s a locksmith genius made a key by feel alone. I’ve never seen that done before. (If you’re in Dublin, here are his details  if you need to secure your home). I filled it with petrol and it started on the third kick. How’s that for robust engineering? That’s not to say there weren’t problems; there was an insect menagerie in the headset and there are various places where paint has started to peel. But that’s how I came by my lovely PX, a survivor with its spirit intact, like me. One day, when I h’ve sold many, many posters, I’ll have it resprayed and brought back to its shiny originality.

How did you come by yours? Any interesting stories I’ll publish here.*

*With the caveat that there’s no profanity or hate speech. We are, after all, people of style and integrity.

Tags: art, GS, italy, lambretta, mod, piaggio, primavera, PX, rally, retro, roman, rome, scooter, soul, sportique, sprint, style, vespa, vintage .

Che Bella: Fancy a Roman Holiday?

Posted on May 9, 2017 by admin Posted in Scooterola News .

She really was a beauty, wasn’t she? It’s very pleasant to imagine riding around the streets of Italy’s capital on one of these, with Audrey Hepburn on the pillion seat. They sold us a dream of ‘la Dolce Vita’ and I certainly bought it. Two style icons for the price of one…

This is the 0 Series Vespa from 1953 as featured in the  film, ‘Roman Holiday’.

Or, as an open edition print (a variety of sizes, unframed) from Scooterola’s store.

Here’s the famous Vespa ride clip from the classic film:

Tags: audrey, che bella, gregory peck, hepburn, holiday, icon, italian, italy, lambretta, mod, retro, roman, rome, scooter, style, vespa, vintage .

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