Modern Vespa

I think that's a great idea Tierney.. if you can find a place!.... I was just down at a shopping center in Santa Monica, and a little coffee place connected to the news stand had a bodge inside as a display piece. I'd be willing to bet they'd give you what you paid for it... (just tell 'em it's not for riding)

Nice Call! Maybe Olive Garden would be the solution to the bodge problem! Seems like it might be a big enough franchise with enough locations to buy a bodge or two for each restaurant. I wonder how many bodges there are in the US, and how many come through each year. How do they even get through customs anyways?

I was in no way defending bodges. I simply asked a legitimate question - can someone offer documented evidence of a bodge induced fatality that would support the deathtrap moniker.

If you have "testified in legal proceedings", something that usually becomes part of the public record, did one of these "proceedings" involve your "expert testimony" in a fatal mishap? I doesn't matter what lofty credentials you might claim, as the question was quite simple and had nothing to do with your claimed credentials. It was simply if anyone could document a bodge causing a fatality.

I willfull accept all other claims about these pieces of crap, as I have seen, with my eyes and in pictures what they are like. To date, I have neither seen myself, nor been shown documentary proof of a fatal, bodge induced mishap. Cite a documented case, and the moniker "deathtrap" would no longer be hyperbole.

viet lammie snapped in half in sa a few months ago, wasnt fatal but could have been with 4wd on his arse


we're not so much into legal proceedings here

it's always a lambretta snapping in half, and I explained why -- much easier for one to snap in half when you can hide a busted up tube frame with pretty bondo'd up body panels...

you can't do this on a vespa as easily (hide structural failure).

oh but they do

Never seen a Vespa snap in half though. Not defending just stating fact.

same here - not defending bodges or bodge-makers - but all of the "sketchy body work" I've seen was mainly in the rear of the bike... usually repairing tail damage, or bondo over a huge dent... using wrong parts that "work" but are incorrect for the model... or using totally bizzarro ways of fixing the motor ("tin can shims"... holes drilled, JB weld) -- which I've also seen on backyard mechanic US-market vespas

I know Patrick from Ptown has experienced headsets snapping in two.

were they custom drop bars? because those are sometimes made by cutting factory CAST aluminum and welding the bars back on at an angle... the welds would most likely break away from the cast section at some point...