Modern Vespa

Long story short, i went to a horsetrader's place last night ( the older dudes that go to swapmeets and generally horde large amounts of gear ). He's normally a cushman / harley collector, but he had a garageful of interesting bikes.

Among which he had a '66 Bluebadge allstate sprint...which is what i was going to check out... for $850..

but after i got there i was more impressed with the fact he had ( and was selling ) a Jawa Manet scooter ..100cc ...floor shifting. With 20 original miles, original paint, etc. made me want to buy it to give away as our raffle bike next year.



And a bike i really wanted, for $400 ...a Bridgestone 60.




Didn't end up buying anything personally ...passed on the Allstate to my buddy who wanted it. It was cool to see that Manet scooter, though ...never saw one before.

Sounds sweet! I wish I could find a guy like that around here ~ just go check out the random PTWs in their glory (and maybe pic something up cheap along the way )

those jawas are cool. they remind me of a vintage cub or something along those lines.

just find out what your local MC / cushman swapmeet schedule is, and start going to those and rubbing elbows with those old dudes. They trip over stupid amounts of old scooters, and pass them around between themselves for peanuts.

A friend of this guy from last night turned up 2 lambretta scooters for $1000 at the last meet ...and one was an SX200 that he sold for 6000.

There's gold in dem dere hills!

That's cool.

Did you see that Blue Badge by the way?

that's good advice. interestingly, there i a cushman club in the town where i live. all oldsters in their 70s. they have an old out of business store downtown that one of them owns with cushmans inside. i should go knock on their door.

Yeah..i went and took pics. It was actually pretty nice. Original bench seat with a "Sears" tag on the back of it instead of the Aquila tag you're used to seeing. Mickey mouse tailight, missing a lens and one reflector. Original paint on the frame and gas tank and headset... no bluebadge on it. Engine had compression and turned freely without any grinding or noise... but it wouldn't start and i didn't spend time worrying about why. I can fix whatever's wrong with the engine, but it was the cosmetic restoration i didn't want to take on... and that's what soured me to it.

Someone had painted the cowls, front fender and horncast area black. If they wouldn't have done that ...i probably would have bought it. It will make a good bike for someone local ( my buddy, potentially ) who just wants a bike to ride. It wasn't a good bike for the club to give away ...because i would have wanted either a more desireable bike to blast / spray / restore and raffle.... or an all original paint bluebadge to give away ( cool because it's original ).

The club has a LOT of money we could spend on a good raffle bike... so it seems unfair to buy a project for $850 at this point.

I happened to see an old couple the other day, each riding their own Doodlebug scooters on the street. They are so tiny, I was surprised to see they had license plates on them.

I would be too afraid to ride one on the street.

All the old men dig those things. Doodlebugs, Powell Scooters, and cushmans.

Somehow the Mitsubishi Silver Pigeons also get lumped in with that group as well, as do the Puch Sears Allstate compacts.

Not sure why those last two never made the hop to our scene from theirs.

yea, the cushman seams like a perfect fit into a vintage scooter scene

we have some good size swap meets out here and it's funny how you'll see people riding around on all kinds of stuff

cushmans, pit bikes, red wagons with big wheels and steering wheels and motors pulling red wagons, old go-karts

cool stuff, really a scene

there is actually etiquete for riding around the meets 8)

my buddy had a silver pigeon once. S L O W A S H E L L