Modern Vespa

You may be over complicating a solution

I took off the left hand knee pad, and put my hand in the space and to the right (there are limited places you can put your hand in this confined space) and within about a minute of feeling around I could feel a plastic part with some movement in it, gave it a little play, and pop, the door's open You don't need to push the ignition ring in to do this - you're manually operating the latch with your fingers instead.

Now the BUT is that I have a small hand for a guy, so I think your larger hand is the issue as you've said you can't get in there. Could someone with a smaller hand help you - partner, neighbour, friend, child? There's nothing technical or skilled going on here - just a finger press of a catch, PROVIDED you can get that finger in there! If someone works the catch manually as it DOESN'T pop, then that's another symptom to work on, but for me, no problem. My issue looks like the ignition ring doesn't travel far enough when pressed in to fully depress the catch and release the door.

That might get you the door open and someway to a fix anyway. That's as far as I've got but my problem seems to be behind the glovebox panel, so I need some time to investigate, and look at the screw question that Midnight Rider suggested. I'll post what I learn but you may get there before me

Good Luck

I've just experimented anew - and it's extremely easy on a GTS300 even with my XXXL hands.

With your hand shaped as above (good pics!) slide your thumb down the outer steering tube until you meet a sharp-ish bit of plastic sitting about 1/4" away from the steering tube. This is the top of the pivoted latch. Push it towards the back of the scoot with the tip of your thumb - and the glovebox pops open. If the glove-box is stiff (something jammed inside or a broken hinge) - have a suction cup on the outside to help it on its way.

It really is very quick and easy, honest.

The stolen GTS above was probably parked by someone who obeyed the (IMHO extremely daft) US-only instruction to turn off the scoot using the kill switch - and forgot to take out the keys as a result.