Modern Vespa

1965 Vespa 150 Electric start. We just took this in trade this weekend, it is a really good looking and better running scoot.

Story is our client (who owns 2 Vespa's and a Moto Guzzi from us) purchased it a while back from a guy out of Florida and shipped it across the country. His wife didn't like the shifty so they got an LX150 from us.

I shot the pictures up to ScooterBobby who said it is Vietnam but looked nice, etc.........

















Should I ride it, retail it, display it or Ebay it.

Cheers,
SDG

dunno... it's certainly asian, though...

GS150 or ilk taillight, p-series centerstand, p-series through-the-floor brake pedal setup, p-series kickstart lever ... is it running an italian p-series or lml engine?

If it's "good running" i'd guess that someone bought a viet bike and stuck a proper p-series engine in it because the one sold with it was garbage, so that's probably why it runs well.

That probably makes it better than 90% of the viet bikes out there, but i'm always still scared about what's under the frame ... the condition of the fork...the important, load-bearing areas that need to be structurally sound.

Eric,

I will check into this much deeper tomorrow. We were busy yesterday when it came in the Vespa Van so I didn't rack it or anything. I have rode others and I do know I took this thing out a few miles and it it fast, stable and a bunch of fun.

I do kind of need some mirrors though, being a modern guy and all.

Thanks,
David

I'm no vintage expert, but I'd run a magnet over the whole thing to check for bondo.

And what about that floor mat? Egads!

floormats, more often than not, seem to be there to cover up bad paint jobs and rust damage more than anything else.

A pristine vespa floor is a beautiful thing ...aluminum rails, riveted aluminum end caps ... ridged black rubber ... if well done they look spectacular. If done poorly, or over a shite paint job or metal, they get covered up with a crappy floor mat


Want to know my secret as far as how to tell how good a restoration is on a vespa or a lambretta?

On a vespa, if the bolts that hold the centerstand to the floor are painted over, it's shite. It means someone sprayed the thing without even bothering to disassemble something that takes 4 lousy bolts to remove. It's cutting corners to the extreme, and it means that all the paint is going to chip off and look shitty in no time.

In this pic, you can see the bolts aren't painted over : (we're talking about the two leftmost bolts sitting immediately next to the floorstrip. The front two hold the brake mechanism on. )



On a lambretta - if the front fork has it's fork link bolts and fork link buffer bolts painted over ...same thing. It means someone likely didn't bother to disassemble the front fork before they painted it. Again, shoddy restoration.

See how these lambretta bolts on this series 2 fork are all painted over? ( the big one on the side, and the 2 smaller ones on the top and the two small ones point downwards ) Shitty.