Modern Vespa

In the 1960's my father was stationed briefly at an Airforce base near Winter Park Florida.
My brother and I attended the local junior high school where many of the kids came from very wealthy families - girls arrived at school via a chauffeur, etc., often in heels and a full dress.
Many of the boys owned small speed boats for playing around by their lake-side homes
My brother and I built a wooden coaster, which we "motorized" by tying it behind a self propelled lawn mower. (when my Dad wasn't home!) We often dreamed of owning a mini-bike - but, on an Air Force officer's family income, that was not an option.

In the parking lot after school - I still remember the smell and sound - as my brother and I watched these boys show off on their pretty Lambrettas. They would race about, nearly colliding, skidding and drag racing, and doing wheel stands - which often lead to dumping the scooter on its side!

We watched those beautiful Italian machines being abused....and then walked home.

…………………………………………………..
Growing up - I never wanted a car. My first vehicle purchase was a Honda motorcycle.
I still don't like cars.
O.S.

When I was in Junior High (as they called it then), I didn't live in an affluent community like Winter Park.

I lived in Arlington, a middle class suburb of Jacksonville.

When the school bus dropped me and my friends at the front of Arlington Jr. High, we would run to an area in the back of the school to see the four or five guys with motorcycles would park.

The bikes were so cool for a 13/14 year old.

Bill

When I was 14, I lusted over a Cushman scooter that I rode a couple miles.
We were poor, so there was no hope I'd ever get one.
I never got over it.

You were lucky, we used to live in a shoe box and would watch the rich kids ride past on their self propelled lawn mowers
(link)

When I was in High School near Portland, OR in the early 1960s, I bought my own Honda 50 (Cub) with paper route money. (my Dad was a mailman)

In my early years of college, everyone wanted a Honda Elite (Lou Reed, Grace Slick, DEVO). Rich kids had them. Poor kids had a bike....I drove a POS VW bug.

Maybe my best friend was right. They weren't rich. I'd accused him of that in 7th grade. I mean, they had a nice ranch house (in the process of building a much large one on 5 acres of land), his dad had a new 1968 Mustang. Life looked good, at least compared to our old family car, etc.

We just about lived on his go-kart, until I came up with my used 50 cc Puch and we rode the heck out of that. Wonder what I would have thought of a scooter if I'd have seen one. I think we were in the "anything that runs is fun" state of mind at the time.

Back in the early sixties, in east Tennessee, we used to ride the Cushman Eagles to high school right behind the coal trucks cause the exhaust off those trucks helped us stay warm in the winter time.

It's amazing we survived those days

fried okra

You had a BOX?

My junior high had a designated parking area with about 40 motorbikes in it, ranging from a Harley all the way down to my base model Mobylette. .

My (four year) older brother's friend rode around on a beat up LamVespa. It took 40 years or so to get mine.

As a 14 y.o. in the eighties, my mate and I would ride 2 up all over Sydney on his VBB. No licence, no registration, no brains.

My mother wouldn't let us even ride on a motorcycle except that ridden by a friend of my dad's sister. She was considered a safe rider buy no one else. In the mid 60s she was in her late 30s and had never driven a car in Southern California or even afterwards when the whole family moved to Missouri. She rode year round rain, snow or sunshine. Yet mopeds with pedals at 30mph weren't a problem as she saw them as bicycles.

Hey strategy to keep us off motorcycles didn't work as we all have full my licenses and have owned a variety of PTW.

Florida, back in the late 50's, I had a crazy cousin, lots older than me, with a Cushman scooter. Going with him for a ride was the coolest thing to date for me.

Then, the neighbor across the street bought his two boys a Sears go-kart....that was it! I thought my gosh, I have to have one! Bench seat, it was orange if I remember correctly.

Since we lived well outside of town, we drove that thing on the streets all around the area. No cars, no cops....just a group of boys loving life. Great times.

About 1963, the boys from affluent families were all riding the new craze...Honda. Never had one, never really paid much attention anymore to what the rich kids were doing, didn't really care either.

My older brother and his friend were into hot rods, but that's another story.

Not sure why everyone keeps referring to early Hondas as "rich kids" rides. I bought my first Honda for $225 brand new. This was at a time when the PTWs of choice where I lived were BSAs, Triumphs, and Harleys. All of them cost quite a bit more than that Honda (and were quite a bit less reliable . I rode my Honda to high school, the rich kid drove a Triumph TR4 roadster to school. I could certainly tell the difference between what I rode and what the rich kid drove.

Dooglas, I'm referring to kids. Kids couldn't ride motorcycles. Kids didn't ride Harleys either, come on....

When I was young, my family lived under a rolled-up newspaper next to a lake.

We feared lawn mowers.

When and where I grew up, everyone one had to have the same permit or license to drive a car, ride a motorcycle, or ride a scooter on a public road. The only difference was that a learners permit for a motorcycle or scooter didn't require a licensed driver along side as did a car. One of the kids in my class in school did have a 250 BSA, and the dirt bike craze of the later '60s was about to begin. In other words, yes "kids" rode motorcycles, though no one at my school had a Harley.

When I was in high school, riding a Cushman Eagle, an upperclassman weighing about 130 pounds was working at the local Triumph dealer and bought a new 1960 Triumph Bonneville.

I used to hang around the high school parking lot to hear that thing fire up and leave every day. Been hooked on Triumphs and riding motos ever since.

fried okra

When I first got into scooters, around 1979, we started going to a village about 10 miles away as we'd heard there was a good youth club there, the local kids were all from well to do families.

The 2nd week we went there, a few of the local kids turned up on brand spanking new Lambretta Jet 200's. To them it was no more normal than my folks buying me some new shoes. To my 16 year old brain, it was my first lesson in haves v have-nots.

Being of a somewhat older generation I was at school in the 1960s in the UK. There were no conspicuously wealthy kids in my senior school even though it was a reasonably high standard "Grammar". Anecdotally there is now a bigger gap between haves and have nots in the UK but this is in part due to greatly increasing spending power enjoyed by 80% of the population. I can remember only one individual who was bought a brand new 2-wheeler by his grandparents.
In some ways my entire working life was influenced by the fact that in order to get on the road my only option was to buy something with a pocket money price that had been abused and wrecked then bring it back to life. It was a steep learning curve with practically no parental guidance but it did bring out some kind of talent for fixing broken things ( or so I'm told!).

My first ride sometime in the 60’s was a “Little Butch” mini bike manufactured by Fimco which is a farm implement company in my home town, Sioux City, Iowa. I didn’t have the chopper model.

Lebo, I've never seen one of those! Great.