Modern Vespa

Sometimes things are simply lost in translation. The interwebs abound with examples.

Seems like the Oriental countries are in the lead for the funniest examples.



Back in the ‘90s my Dad taught in Seoul for about three years. He was always telling me about the Americanized culture over there. Sometimes it was just random words thrown together to look American, but apparently the letter “V” isn’t something familiar. There was a lot of “Harley Dabidson” swag to be had.

Hey, I'm waiting for the day when Polaris has to change the name of their bikes to "Native American".

I have always thought that “Buddy” was the most atrocious name for a scooter. Just makes it sound like “mobility” should be in front of it…

It is worse than that. The name in Taiwan for the PGO scooter called "Buddy" in the US is "BuBu".

Especially confusing when their competition is building bikes in India.

It's not.

Kymco had its Grand Dink. (Renamed the "Grandvista" for the US market.)

Nothing compared to the Italian car (out of production) Fiat Ritmo whose American name had been changed to Strada because Ritmo was a brand of condoms.

Kymco was so proud of their "Bet and Win" 250 and 150 scooters they saw no reason to change the name.
My LIKE used to make me cringe, but I've matured.
O.S.

I always liked some of the gentler vehicle marques such as Lilac, Lotus, Sunbeam, Fair Lady, Swallow or the fierce makes of Trojan, Rapier or Pierce Arrow. Tiger, Ram, Tiburon, Cobra, Mustang, Cougar, Mammut or others from Noah's ark are getting long in the tooth.
I drive a Soul, awaiting the new Chi, Aura and Namaste to follow.

My recent purchase has a fairly normal model name, Super, but it's the seller, Dong Fang Motors, that makes me wince.

We can all agree that even the worst Chinese scooter is better than anything out of France though, can't we?

Peugeot sold its scooter business to Mahindra a little while as I don't think it ever really made them much money.

https://www.visordown.com/news/industry/mahindra-assumes-full-ownership-peugeot-scooters

Peugeot has been using Piaggio engines for many years but not anymore ...
Well, the fact that the only two scooters Kawasaki and BMW and others use Kymko engines for their scooter also tells us how much the quality of Made in Taiwan has increased.

Kymko is spelt Kymco.

Oh yeah ... I hope you'll excuse me if i don't often write in taiwanese.

Did you know that 200 is French for 169?

https://peugeotmotocycles.co.nz/model/belville-200-2/

spelt is spelled differently here, ferengi.

A good friend of mine rides a Kymco People S200. His displacement is 163cc. It's kind of a running gag, especially since my wife's Buddy 170i is "bigger" at 169cc.

Oh, and ... the last ride. Delivered to the new owner yesterday. Certainly is the end of an era. I told my wife now there's a hole in the garage ... and my heart. I could actually hear the eye roll.

Are you sure it was the scooter that had to go?

And all this time I've been buying most of my Honda Helix parts in Italy, due to a sense that there's better quality control there than on aliexpress. Did you know that you can buy OEM Honda Helix parts (that aren't made in China,) in Italy, or even from a company like Fowlers? Your customers would probably prefer that over the cheapest thing you can possibly find on the internet.

Also produce repro spare parts of Honda models from the 70s and 80s.

I was surprised how much they still love the CB750. But that's not the reason you can get OEM Honda Helix parts from Piaggio.

It's the Cafe Racer starter kit of choice.

Funny how they all end looking up the same.

One of my favorite bikes growing up was the Yamaha 650 twin. Try finding one that hasn't been bobbed or cafe racered, or flat tracked.

I wish you luck.

Isn't it interesting that customisation is supposed about putting your stamp on something and yet all of the K7's and BMW R's that have been Cafe Raced are identical.

Ruckus, Zuma. Lot of people dumpin' mad money in them. Ruckisti are probably the most passionate, way more than your average Vespa rider.. Don't hear a lot about Royal Alloy except from the people selling them and people who just bought one. It's not as popular now as it was before you could buy them.

Last edited by Motovista on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 06:12:07 +0000; edited 1 time

Piaggio built (but only for a short time) the Piaggio Hexagon with Honda Helix engine (Space from us) and therefore has a stock of spare parts.

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Hexagon


"In 1999 another 2 models were released, the Hexagon 250GT and the Hexagon LX4 125, designed to adapt the offer to the need to use four-stroke engines. Equipped with the same stylistic and chassis solutions as the previous models, the 250GT used a Honda-derived engine that was also fitted to many other scooters from different manufacturers; it was a 2-valve, liquid-cooled engine capable of delivering 19 horsepower and ensuring very low fuel consumption compared to the 180 two-stroke."

Last edited by Attila on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 06:20:10 +0000; edited 1 time

And they did a little something different, which at the time seemed like a cheap move but has turned into an advantage. To save money, they had spare parts made in Taiwan, not Japan. Meanwhile, Honda moved production to Mexico. A lot of OEM Helix parts come from Mexico or China now and Piaggio is still getting them in Taiwan.

Piaggio wanted to enter the 250 market and did not yet have an engine of its own production ready, so it used the Honda engine. Aprilia instead used the Majesty's Yamaha 250 engine on its Leonardo scooter. Flexibility.

Yes, you could at that time get all the original parts from many places in europe including the UK. Never deal with Aliexpress. My customer didn't want to pay over £1500 to have those parts and for my labour to rebuild the engine. In truth his engine was completely toasted because the 'rod' had gone through the crankcases destroying the whole engine. Nothing really left to rebuild. Since the Jailing engines were made with the original Honda tooling and same processors and were regarded as ok there was no contest on his decision. £475 for a brand new motor delivered and ready to use is a no contest situation. Only issue a few early Jailing engines had was some camshafts that hadn't been hardened correctly. Easily fixed though and my customer never did have any issues with the new motor.

That. The Ruckus group is crazy fanatical. But it's all about the mods.

When you search the interwebs for scooter mods, it's rarely Vespas. But the aftermarket is super hot for a lot of other brands. There's so much out there for the GY6 I wouldn't even know where to start.

Some scootering updates from the long weekend.

I put my wife's bike, the Buddy 170i, back on the road and we took our first ride of the season together. During the ride, the Stella quit and we decided not to take any chances at getting stranded. (I knew we'd be fine, but my wife was worried so we went home.)

Yesterday morning I hopped on the Buddy and went about 100 miles. I rode out to Holland State Park to look at the big lake.

The thing that I thought of the most during the ride was what a great little bike the Buddy is. Seriously worry free riding. I was cruising right around 60 with room to spare and it gets nearly 100mpg. And I don't even have to think about it ... it just runs.

So it got me thinking after buttoning up a few things on the Stella this season perhaps selling it and getting into something a little better. Thinking Vespa, of course, but on topic is it really worth the investment?

I'm considering the 150. Reason being I will never ride a scooter on the highway. In Michigan, the speed limit is 70, so unless you are doing 80 you spend all your time holding up traffic. The 300 wouldn't be enough. Everywhere else is 55 and the 150 would be fine for that, especially considering the price difference.

Still, the Hooligan - same setup as my wife's Buddy only a little larger bike - is $3399 new while the Vespa 150 is $5349/$5649. That's like two grand.

I dunno. Knowing me I'll just keep hammering on the Stella. But I thought perhaps a good time to resurrect an old thread and share my thoughts. With current gas prices there are probably lots of folks considering scooters, and there was lots of good info in this thread.

If you've no scooter dealer nearby.....which is most of the USA....have a Kymco Agility 125 or one of the bullet proof first gen. LIKE200I's delivered to your driveway.
Probably be your last contact with the dealer because you'll never again need them, except for belts, rollers and air filters.

One might not be so comfortable doing this after spending big bucks on that distant Vespa?
O.S.

I appreciate it, but I have a friend with a Kymco People S200. Great bike, but try getting parts.

We have a Vespa dealer here in town as well as the dealer I bought my first bike from. He's gotten into a much better line of scoots (Lance as well as some others) and he's always good for parts. The Lance Cabo is "like" a Hooligan.

Again, not sure which way I'll go, but I've said it before. The older I get the more I prefer riding over wrenching.

I keep flipping through online scooter sellers to see how things are going. They must have ordered in more scooters this year. Their selections don't seem to have shrunk as badly although they are selling out on many 250cc motorcycles. Ebikes are showing up all over the place.

I like 150cc bikes and they have their place just like any other size motor bike.

Re the capabilities of the 278 cc engine: Riding a GTS 300 Vespa on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit is certainly possible. I do it often, I am certainly not the fastest in these situations, but not the slowest either. Not my favorite way to ride as I like corners and love to hear my center stand scrape the pavement 😀 it's still a lot of fun though.

I seriously looked at a Lifan KPV150 before getting my GTS. The Lifan is at the high end of Chinese scooters that you can obtain without going through a dealer. Meaning, price out the door is simply the price plus shipping to your house and you have to bolt the wheels and handle bars on. The Lifan has already been introduced over seas but the first batch just came to the states. It is a take off on the Honda ATV, adventure scooter. It has a liquid cooled 150cc motor. All LED lights, lots of features and Lifan has been making bikes and engines forever. $3000 delivered. I had my finger over the "buy" button ten times. I picked the Vespa basically because in the grand scheme of things, it was older but minty and priced right. Additionally, the extra 100 cc's gets me on the highway no problem.

I also looked at low rent internet Chinese scooters. Buy lock-tite and make sure you have metric tools. Some sellers not too reliable. Very plastic-ey looking.

The Kymcos, Lance, Sym, Genuine etc. all had great offerings and some had 3% financing and whatnot. I found that test rides were not easily obtained. "oh, a test ride? yea, about that, you'll have to come back on the second Saturday of every other month and have an appointment".

That said, I would love to take a ride on that big Kymco AK 550. Impressive machine.

Last year I bought a crate scooter from Red Fox Powersports from Dong Fang motors. The lineage got even stranger when I looked at the VIN plate and saw the name Tiyen as the manufacturer. That was reinforced when I spoke to the insurance company who also said Tiyen was the builder. My insurance card says Tiyen and I was in full sweat mode when I went to register it. Fortunately the DMV employee was more concerned that the VIN numbers all matched from forms to MSO (which read Dong Fang) to insurance card and I walked out with a plate and registration. My Title reads Dongf as does my registration.
My wife, waiting outside, was as pleased as I was when she saw me walking out with a plate in hand.

Last edited by kz1000ST on Thu, 02 Jun 2022 19:38:44 +0000; edited 1 time

I recently saw the invoice for a Honda ADV 150 purchased in Malaysia. It was a little less than $2850. And for $900 more, they shipped it to the EU, where the ADV 150 isn't sold.


















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