Modern Vespa

That's too cool, and great that you still have a picture of it!

Thanks, although it seems like ancient history now...

NSR - I've been amazed at the number of hot rodders of my generation who first learned about engines by taking a Briggs & Stratton to bits. A biker friend of mine over here asked me to recommend an engine his son could learn on, and I suggested a B&S. He's now got one in the garage for his dad and him to work on. IMHO it's a great way to connect with your kid in this era of electronic devices and social media.

62 and fighting every step of the way. Reinventing myself as often as I can. Husband; photographer; chef; musician and above all Dad. Playing in the company band has taken years off of me.

Briggs and Stratton was king of the hill when I was a kid too- powered many a mini-bike and home made go-karts.

I just turned 42, went for a 4 day "bush doof" (lots of psy trance), so feel old.
This is my first Vespa & I still have it, crashed it a few years back, & will restore it this year.

, I had a Suzuki FA50, Honda ST90, Zundapp Bella, Yamaha something & 19 minis in th next few years! I still buy & sell.

Same here. B&S was the standard ... until one day a kid showed up with a McCullough and smoked everybody.

Dissection with a kid may be the best and highest use of a B&S small engine. If it still occasionally starts when the mood strikes it (how many hours of my pre-teen youth were frittered away winding up our family's 3.5hp B&S mower engine, doing dances to the Allowance God, in hope that I could get lawn mowed?), maybe it can be bolted into a backyard go-kart, if those plans are still sold in little ads in the back of Popular Mechanics. When there's actual work to get done, I'll use a Honda . . .

Back in the 50's my brother and I had a frame from a Cushman which we powered with a 5hp Briggs that we "Borrowed" from a construction site.

Being totally "inventive" and not having any money for parts ( throttle cable, brake cables, seat, etc.), and the need to test ride brought forth the grand Idea to set the idle screw a little faster and just use the spark kill on the head of the engine to "control" our speed.

The trial run went well as the idle was set just high enough for the automatic clutch to engage and move the Cushman off down the road. Speed and stopping of course was adjusted by putting a hand between your legs and pushing the spark kill over to temporally kill the engine.

After both of the "mechanical types" had driven and given their ok to the slow speed test it was decided to move on to some "real road speed" testing.

A coin flip gave my brother the "privilege". Next we set up the idle screw by just turning it 3 or 4 turns. With my brother "seated" and pointed in the correct alignment with center of the road I gave the starter cord a good pull. The engine being well warmed up, kicks over and was at near full throttle.

As I stand there watching my brother as he heads off at a far faster clip than "engineering" had planned it came to me that he should not be sitting on the metal frame work of the Cushman in his shorts, this being confirmed by his loud screams. Each time he reached down to kill the spark he would let out the most awful scream which could be heard far and wide. It took him almost three blocks to finally stop.

As others have pointed out, you sure can learn a lot from a Briggs and Stratton.

Getting the "electric chair" for swiping a B&S engine seems about right . . .

I grew up in a suburb not unlike the one depicted in The Wonder Years.

There was a teenage hot-rodder who lived down the street named Ronnie... uber cool... always had something with wheels and a motor in his garage. He allowed us to hang out and watch and sometimes gave us rides in them.

One afternoon he announced he was going to teach us kids how to drive. A bunch of us piled into an old Crosley Farm-O-Road mini truck he had, and he drove and to a big open dirt field about a mile away. We get there, he does a lap, then just says, here, your turn. I must've been maybe 11 years old. Looking back it was one of the funnest and most dangerous things you can imagine.

That pretty much sums up the entirety of my youth right there.

But I also come from Texas, the land where the most common Last Words are, "Hey y'all! Hold my beer and watch this!"

I grew up on a horse farm with tons of paved roads. There was another large farm next to us and the closest portion wasn't used. They had a long road back to a creek and we made all sorts of trails down and up along the creek for miles as no one was ever around. There was also a guy who lived on another road who had a large moto-cross track laid out on his place and we would ride over and watch and ride. I was usually out the door early, back for lunch, had dinner somewhere and home after dark or staying at a friends and running all over the countryside. I don't ever recall seeing a cop or getting in trouble for running all over because no one knew what we were up to. Having my own children and seeing how the world has changed in such a short time brings a smile to my face for the opportunity I had during my youth to explore and be a hellion. I think my kids had a good childhood, but I never could understand how they always bunked in their rooms with friends and played computer games all day when they had minibikes, bicycles, horses, a pool and a large area to run and do things out doors? It drove me nuts but I suppose at some point they'll recant how things have changed since they were kids?

Because everyone is so paranoid & over-protective these days. If you so much as let your child take a dump without hovering over them, someone will turn you in to Child Protective Services for neglect.

I joke that I was "raised by wolves," because I had a similarly-unsupervised childhood and came through it with all my fingers and toes still attached (though it was a near thing a few times) and it drives me nuts how my wife literally won't let my teenage daughter walk two blocks to a friend's house unsupervised--but she's in the clear majority, because all the other parents behave the same damn way.

I point out that, statistically, children are safer today in terms of rates of abduction and abuse, there's just heightened sensitivity due to cable news going apeshit for days on end every time some cute white chick goes missing.

One of the common expressions of my youth was "It was fun until somebody's Mom found out."

Same here, but then I was born and raised in SoCal...

Love your comment about the McCulloch engine - I know that one, too, especially around the local karting scene in the early 1960s. Shot of same B&S engine in my then-obsolete kart in 1963.

A few years later, I ended up totaling it while testing it on my street. The throttle stuck wide open, the brakes failed (cable slipped through the locking sleeve) and, unbeknownst to me, one of my brother's less-clever friends had disconnected the kill switch, as it was causing ignition problems.

I rounded the corner, trying to stall the kart against the curb, but hit it so hard that I cartwheeled (pun intended) the machine into a tree.

Amazingly, I walked away without a scratch, but that ended my career as a kart racer. My folks were very unimpressed with my antics - nothing unusual there...

"As I stand there watching my brother as he heads off at a far faster clip than "engineering" had planned it came to me that he should not be sitting on the metal frame work of the Cushman in his shorts, this being confirmed by his loud screams. Each time he reached down to kill the spark he would let out the most awful scream which could be heard far and wide. It took him almost three blocks to finally stop. "

Priceless!

I too was raised by wolves -excellent metaphor- and am grateful for the chaos of my summer holidays in Italy. But I do enjoy being an adult always in pursuit of my childhood summers.

Wow, some of those photos from SoCal in the 60's reminds me so much of my own neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. We had our bikes and roamed far and wide without our parents knowing where we were...so long as we headed home when the streetlights were on all was well. No spot trackers, cell phones, instant messages. How did we survive? 😉

It's a question that baffles modern archeology to this day...

We were just too stupid to know that all that freedom was supposed to kill us.

Speaking of stupid, does anyone else remember running behind and playing in the DDT sprayer mist as a kid?

[quote="classic rider
Speaking of stupid, does anyone else remember running behind and playing in the DDT sprayer mist as a kid?[/quote]

Wow! I remember it was a way to cool off on a hot summer evening!

As for today's overprotective parents (I'm 50, so I'm here with them), I like to tell everyone that you don't have a successful childhood unless you went to the ER at least twice for injury.

I cut my foot (a few stitches), sprained my wrist on a go-kart (and totaled my friend's kart), cut my hand while doing tree pruning... you get the idea. My daughter (she's 20 now) managed to bust herself up on a swingset (2 staples), fell off her bike (massive road rash), and caught a hockey stick to the face (nice scar on her eyebrow, it gives her street cred with her Canadian classmates).

You gotta be willing to go out there and do something stupid so that you might learn that in the future, it's not a good idea to do that....

They used to spray our Jr. High about once a month ... while we were in class.

Check this out for a laugh:

http://flashbak.com/8-reasons-children-of-the-1970s-should-all-be-dead-323/

^^^^ Now that's funny; it was even more dangerous for those of us who grew up in the 1950s and '60s, apparently...

I got my first "Motorcycle" when I was 14. I use the term "motorcycle" advisedly since it was a bastard machine made up from the parts of various makes and aged parts and was never registered. It obviously could not be ridden on the streets.
Over these many years I've had a couple of dozen motorcycles and scooters of all makes, types, sizes, and colors. They were all fun. Some weren't worth much, but they were fun to ride.
I presently have two '05 Vespa GT200Ls, one of which has a Cozy sidecar attached. The sidecar sort of became necessary due to my age.
I've just about quit riding the solo bike because I've grown too weak and decrepit to pick it or myself up if I go down. It has happened a couple of times.
I rolled over the hump last month and now I'm on the downhill slide to age 93 on next May 15.

A toast to you Richard. You are an inspiration. A rider among riders.

That's what I'm talking about! So rad.

47 years old. I started riding in 1989, after a couple of years I stopped (took a spill) and then got back on the saddle again in 2008 when we got the red P200.

I'm 66 and started riding just 4 years ago. I'd been thinking about Vespa style for many years, but waited until other obligations were met. I have 15,000 miles on three scoots up to now. I should have done this years ago. So much fun.

Got my first Vespa at 17 years old and had it for two years.
Got my new Vespa about 6 months ago.
Just turned 68 years old.

turn 31 last month, 13 years on vespa.
i was started riding at 10 years old on yamaha u5 cub

First scoot was a dark blue 1982 Vespa 50 Special reg. SJB 771Y. That was 1984 and I was 16. I've had one or more Vespas (and one Lambretta) on the go ever since, with a break between '89 and '95.

The Vespa 50 Special was slow as f*@k and you used to think you were the dog's nads if your one did 34 or even 35MPH. In the UK, 16 year olds cannot exceed 50cc and you are limited to 30MPH.

When Vespa stopped producing the 50 Special in 1983/4, people we knew started to buy PK50s, much to our amusement. The PK was slower than Forrest Gump and looked like something from behind the iron curtain!!

Fifty eight years old. First scoot was a shared Vespa that my best friend and I picked up for $75 each. We abused that poor thing, rode without licenses for two years when we were 13-14. I prefer to think that we were "free range" children as being raised by wolves implies that there was some sort of supervision.

64 and the scooter ( along with a couple of other vintage vehicles ) is pretty much sidelined for the winter due to massive salt use here. They send the trucks out if there's a chance of frost.
I love the discussion of how we should all be dead from the way we went through our childhood. I still haven't adopted the habit of putting on a seat belt.

LMAO! Yes, how did we survive.???

Your comment reminded me of buying my first crash helmet. That was only worn when racing my car - sickel head-gear consisted of an old corduroy flat cap turned back-to-front and a pair of Japanese knock-off Foster Grant aviator shades bought from the local Big 5 sporting goods store...

Started Riding in late 1968 To Present.
It Started As Cheap Transportation,
But Now i Can't Go A Week Without Riding.

Memories!

1954, 7th grade shop. Introduction to internal combustion engines was done with the Cox .049 model aircraft engine. 2T, glow plug diesel.

Then we moved on to the B&S. Did dis-assembly and reassembly, tuning and troubleshooting. There were three riding carts to mount the engines on, and the instructor would create problems and we would test ride and diagnose.

The following year we moved up to a 1949 Ford with flathead V8.

My riding is now sponsored by UK government, been riding some 49 years, on all sorts of bikes, scooters and cars.
This year is a big one for me, many rides planned in UK and France.

49 been riding off and on since I was a teen

44. Just got another P after 20yrs. Had my first P from 18 to 25...

1990, I'm second from the left...