Scooters

Well luv them or hate em ( we luv them ) everybody has seen one or more commonly heard them, there are lots of types but the ones most interesting to us are of course the Lambretta and Vespa, so heres a bit of did you know…………

A brief history

Construction and models

POW – it’s the Mods!

Music

Clothing 

Timeline of models

Modern scootering

A cutdown

Picture Galley

Construction and models

A brief history

The main stimulus for the design style of the Lambretta and Vespa dates back to Pre-WWII , These olive green scooters were in Italy in large numbers, ordered originally by the US military as field transport for theParatroops and Marines. The US military had used them to get around German defence tactics of destroying roads and bridges

Aeronautical engineer General Corradino D’Ascanio, responsible for the design and construction of the first modern helicopter by Agusta, was given the job by Ferdinando Innocenti of designing a simple, robust and affordable vehicle. It had to be easy to drive for both men and women, be able to carry a passenger and not get its driver’s clothes soiled.

Construction and models

Like Vespas of the day, Lambrettas had three or four gears and two-stroke engines with capacities ranging from 49 cc to 198 cc. Most two-stroke engines require a mixture of oil with the gasoline in order to lubricate thepiston and cylinder.

Along with the Vespa, Lambretta was an iconic vehicle of the 1950s and 1960s when they became the adopted vehicle of choice for the UK youth-culture known as Mods. The character Jimmy from the influential scooter movie Quadrophenia rode a Lambretta Li 150 Series 3. Of the 1960s models, the TV (Turismo Veloce), the Special (125 and 150), the SX (Special X) and the GP (Grand Prix) are generally considered the most desirable due to their increased performance and refined look; the “matte black” fittings on the GP model are said to have influenced European car designs throughout the 1970s. These three models came with a front disc brake made by Campagnolo. The TV was the world’s first production two-wheeled vehicle with a front disc brake !!

Lambrettas have attracted an eclectic following of ” Mods ”

(Aka)

Casuals,  Roundel, Scooter, Scooterboy,  Sharpies, Skinhead,

Soulboy,   Suedehead .

POW – it’s the Mods!

Like most phenomena, the Mod movement happened at exactly the right moment. By the time the media noticed them – 1962 – a social, demographic and economic crossroads had been reached: National Service had been abolished, the economy had begun to boom, and hire purchase arrangements gave people vastly increased spending power. A better time to be a teenager will almost certainly never occur. The Mod scene went bananas.

From being a scattering of ultra hip subterranean club dwellers, Mod had quickly evolved to take on a definitive culture and structure of its own. At the top, there were the Aces, still on the cutting edge, still setting the pace, still listening to the hippest tunes. The individuals may have changed, but the attitude had not. It was perfectly possible, while grooving to obscure ska tracks in some Shepherd’s Bush basement club, to bump into David Bailey, Twiggy and Mary Quant in the same evening.

The next strata were the instantly recognisable and much maligned ‘Tickets’ or ‘Numbers’. They were first noticed in East London, when gangs of arrogant, strutting kids began to descend upon dancehalls and nightclubs, causing inevitable confrontation. Their look generally followed where the Aces lead, although with a more working class flavour. The shapeless army surplus Parka coat became iconic as well as practical. It protected the wearers’ expensive weekend suits from the vagaries of the London climate, and was also kept the cold out while weaving among the traffic on the regulation scooter. These scooters – predominantly Italian Vespa and Lambretta models – were spectacular. Bedecked with peacock fans of wing mirrors, and decorated with numerous headlights, crash bars, whip aerials, white wall tyres and high backed seats, they were possibly the coolest thing ever to hit the tarmac.

For everyday wear, turned up Levi’s became de rigueur, often shrunk to size by being worn in the bath. Desert boots and Fred Perry tennis shirts were enormously popular. For these kids, Mod really was a way of life. Every night, something would be happening somewhere, the entire scene fuelled by amphetamine – very much the Mod drug of choice. Although available, pot simply did not fit in with Mod ideology. Pot slowed you down. Speed kept you leaping for days. There was no competition. This strata of the scene began to produce it’s own bands – notably the Small Faces, the Yardbirds and an Acton outfit called the High Numbers, shortly to achieve fame as the Who.

For a brief while, the Who defined Mod. A string of classic singles: ‘I Can’t Explain’, ‘Anyhow Anywhere Anyway’, ‘The Kids Are Alright’ and the frankly bonkers ‘My Generation’ propelled the Mod sound into every jukebox and radio in Britain. ‘The Who are clearly a new form of crime’ wrote the Daily Telegraph,’anti social and armed against the bourgoise’. Combining the angry, spitting stance of the backstreet Mod with the Pop Art stylings of their manager – leading Ace Kit Lambert – the Who are still the first thing that comes to mind whenever ‘Mod’ is mentioned. This is perhaps rather inaccurate – many Mod purists never accepted the Who.

Music

2 Tone,   Acid Jazz,   Beat music,  Blue-eyed soul, Blue Beat, British Invasion,  British rhythm and blues,  Britpop, Freakbeat, Garage rock, Jazz ,Mod revival. Modern soul, Motown, Northern Soul, Post-punk revival, Power Pop, Reggae, R&B, Rocksteady, Soul, Ska, Stax Records, Trojan Records.

Clothing 

Ben Sherman,  Bespoke tailoring, Brogues,    Carnaby Street, Chelsea boots, Fishtail parka, Fred Perry,  Harrington, Levi’s,  Loafers, Parka, Sta-Prest Suit.

Kitted out.         Isle Of Man, late 1960’s.

Timeline of models

 Model A, 1947–1948

 Model B, 1948–1950

 Model C/LC, 1950–1951

 Model D, 1951–1957

 Model LD, 1951–1958

 Model E, 1953–1954

 Model F, 1954–1955

 TV Series 1, 1957–1959

 Li Series 1, 1958–1959

 Li Series 2, 1959–1961

 TV Series 2, 1959–1962

 Li Series 3, 1961–1967

 TV/GT Range, 1962–1965

 Li Special, 1963–1969

 J Range, 1964–1971

 SX Range, 1966–1969

 Lui/Vega/Cometa, 1968–1970

 GP/DL Range, 1969–1971 (Italy)

 GP/DL, 1972–1998 (India)

Modern scootering

Contrary to popular belief, Mod never really died it just went underground. With a generation of young fans entering the Northern Soul network, some Mods also broke off to form the long lived scooter scene.

A well known film released in the late 70’s helped not only revive the Mod scene, but people’s interest in scooters as well. The number of organised scooter rallies increased steadily over the 80’s and 90’s and are still going strong to this day with events being organised all over the world.

Cutting down their Vespas to make them run faster, the scooter scene remains hugely popular across the country. A network of rallies regularly attracts thousands, with the Isle Of Wight holiday weekender remaining an enduring staple of the scene.

The Lambretta and vespa  are iconic scooters and they still have a ‘similar’ shape some 60 years on from when they were first manufactured, testament to classic designing from the beginning.

Owning a Vespa is not just about the scooter. It’s a way of life. Buy one and you’ll see what I mean!

Liam Gallagher on his series 1, shot taken in his Mother’s back
garden, Burnage, Manchester

Liam Gallagher on “Ace Face ” scooter.

Quotes: From Quadrophenia (1979)
Ace Face: [Fined for rioting in Brighton] I’ll pay now. Got a pen, judge?

Paul Weller on his scooter

The Style Council/Paul Weller scooter wrap graphics

Sir Bradley “Wiggo” Wiggins

Some beautiful examples.

A cutdown

A cutdown is a customised scooter (usually an Italian Vespa or Lambretta) with parts of the bodywork removed or cut away. Cutdowns were popular amongst skinheads and scooterboys during the mod revival of the 1970s and 1980s. While the style-obsessed British mod youth subculture of the 1960s prized the glamorous, metropolitan image of scooters, many skinheads and scooterboys viewed their bikes as simply a form of transportation.

While some scooter enthusiasts have focused on the stripped-down look, with just a bare frame and visible motor and mechanical parts, some scooterboys put back almost as much hardware as they had taken off, by adding customized chrome-plated accessories and racks.

A cutdown scooter resembles a “naked scooter”, which is a scooter designed without panels covering the engine and with little or no bodywork. The difference between the two types is that while a cutdown scooter started as a regular scooter with body panels and bodywork, before it was customized, a “naked scooter” is designed and manufactured as a “bare-bones” vehicle. In the 1960s, Lambretta models A through D were in this category. In the 1990s, Italjet produced a stripped-down scooter called the Dragster.

This “naked” Lambretta has been cut down and customized.

A picture says a thousand words, and there are plenty of pictures here for you to look at, so sit back, click away and enjoy

Picture Galley

A Clean scoot with the :Tins off.

Why not add your own pics !!