Modern Vespa

I lucked out on the best find (in my opinion) of the year.

A 1954 Piaggio Ape (VIN AB1T) that was tucked away in a gas station down in San Diego.

Was previously restored but even the wood is in incredible condition for the age.

One downside: Seized piston. I have it soaking in oil currently but, I just know that I will need a new piston.

Body wise, it pretty much looks like a VM2T from the front. Pretty cool. However, the engine is 150 cc.

I may take the piston out--if I'm able to--and take it down to Scooter West to see if they have any comparable pistons. I'll keep the thread updated!

Pistons are available: https://www.sip-scootershop.com/en/product/piston-meteor-2o-s_19432000?q=vb1%20piston

That's fantastic!
Congrats.

More pics when you can please.

That thing looks amazing. Top speed is probably about 30 MPH, but you don't want to be going too fast or people won't be able to see how cool you look riding it.

You seem to have a whole bunch of interesting and unusual modes of transport in your workshop. Any more gems hiding out of frame?

Very Cool. Some strange things going on there though. The front motor mount seems to be hand made as does the gas tank support. the tank also has some funky stuff going on with the lower bits. The horn is obviously aftermarket and the top bow attachment to the wood is incorrect. The vertical middle piece of wood on the body shouldn't be that wide and the the main panels should be Masonite. The front fender appears to be off a later bike and the head light looks like it might be cast rather than spun?

It might not be what you want to hear but these were reproduced in Vietnam with some notoriety about ten years ago...

I saw that thing on Craigslist, glad to see it appear here.

Thanks for the love!

Thanks for the piston advice as well.

KMF,
I noticed those things too. The short story on this Ape is that is was restored awhile back during the previous owner's time with it. He passed away and the guy who was slowly restoring it left town with the rest of the money. I figure that someone that is willing to do that would also be willing to cut corners on a restoration. This is evident by a subpar paint job and the things you listed above. Now, it did cross my mind that this could be a replica as you stated. Even if that is the case, I am impressed with this thing regardless. On top of the things you mentioned there was a second ape frame that was included in the purchase.

It was clearly hand made or at the very least a heavily modified frame. I'll post pictures of that when I get a chance this weekend. In this second modified frame, there was a modern GTs front fork installed. And, you guessed it, a completely disassembled GTS (minus the frame). Putting two and two together I reason that the orginal plan was to frakenstein together a vintage-looking Ape with a modern drive train. Crazy, I know. I'm a teacher so maybe that could be a fun summer project for me.

Chandlerman,
Yes! I have another Isetta (project) tucked around the corner. I am trying to sell it if you know anyone that is interested!

More pictures to come of this Ape this weekend!

ape with a GTS driveline? hell to the yeah!

I would totally build something like that!

I could see you making a fortune with that thing running kids to the school prom, doing wedding shoots or novelty taxi tours. Really unusual and not the run of the mill flash car.

And that fact that it's 4t quiet/clean rather than 2t loud/smoky makes even more sense in that context.

How much for the Isetta??

Yeah, I was wondering about that, even though I know my wife would kill me if it showed up at my house.

I don't think, "But Honey! You've always said you wanted a BMW!" would cut it that case.

It would not.

Spoken from experience?

Here's my progress on the Ape so far:

Pulled the engine last night. The piston was seized but after soaking it with some penetrating oil for the last week and some "persuasion" with a washer, 20 mm socket and a hammer, I was able to move it down enough to remove the cylinder. The piston and rings are totally fine! Weird. Seems to be a modern piston too. Unfortunately, the crankshaft seems to be the problem. I'm getting slight movement in the crank so i will be investigating into it more once I split the cases this weekend.

When taking out the engine on the Ape, I noticed two things. First, someone got creative when this was last "restored" and they welded and fabricated their own motor mount. It works so that's fine.
Second, some of the parts on the cool fan side of the engine have bajaj parts, just the shifter from what I've found so far. The VIN on the clutch side matches a 1953 Piaggio Ape so I'm guessing that the original motor was missing some parts that were filled in with Bajaj stuff. I have another Ape (1957) parked behind this one with a perfectly good motor. I'll probably pull some parts off of that to make this one complete.

I was also able to track down the shop that did the previous "restoration". Turns out I was right on the second Ape frame. The original plan--back in 2015--was to elongate the green Ape and put a modern 300 GTS motor in it. Once it was disassembled and the frame elongated, the previous owner passed away and the project stopped. I plan to finish what they started! It's still a bummer that a perfectly good handlebar Ape was modified...but, I'll make the most out of it.

As far as the Isetta is concerned, I'll be posting it on the usual sites in the next coming weeks for 10k. I like all you MV guys so if you are really interested, send me a PM and we can discuss a lower price. Heck, make me some cash + Vespa trade offer!

All back together!

What does the bottom of the head look like?

GickSpeed: looked good! I cleaned it
Off before reinstalling and their were no blemishes.

Here's the gts powered Ape!

this delights me to no end.

APE GTS?!! Ape rolling 50mph - YES PLEASE

I'm looking at this and thinking, why fuck around at this point? figure out a quad or SxS rear end for this thing.

but I'd go air-cooled.

granted it's a step back and doesn't carry the cool factor, but an ET or LX motor or even a quad/small SxS motor would be infinitely easier install electrics and plumbing wise. and if you're that far, adios the disc up front and just run whatever drum set up to make it easy and throw a disc out back so you can stash the MC under the floor with a pedal.

but for full blown cool factor? GTS motor and a disc would be jam.

Please take this off my hands...
Before I hurt myself
AND
I have too many projects and not enough space!
PM me if you're interested!
I'm in Socal

I would *love* to build this for somebody.

but unless it fell into my lap on the cray-cray cheap I'm full up with my own projects!

Sent you a PM