Modern Vespa

Hey all,

I recently picked up a GTV 250, and loved the idea of a soft topcase. I decided on the SX Appeal for now (may upgrade to a nice leather one in the future).

Anyway, I thought I would post my results. I saw the great post here, and thought I would give this a similar treatment.

First off, here's the case before I started messing with it:


And here's the underside as well:



I went to Home Depot, and they didn't have similar hook bolts as the leather case directions. So, I decided to deviate a bit, and try and use a couple U-bolts meant for 1" pipes:


The U-bolts were 5/16", so I also got some nylon washers and bolt caps for the ends:



I also got a small roll of 3/8" vinyl tubing. The tubing was to protect my rack from scratches from vibrating against the U-bolts:


My plan was to drill out the rivets holding the bottom two angled straps, and replace them with the U-Bolts. First thing I noticed was the U-bolts were just a bit wide:


Since I didn't have easy access to a vice, I improvised, and bent them with a cheap pair of Vise-Grips. This actually worked quite well:


After that came the part that I thought would be pretty easy, drilling out the rivets. I didn't have a drill press, so I attempted to do this using a hand drill. Didn't work so well.
I broke two bits, and almost punched a hole in the case when they broke. The rivets ended up just spinning in the holes when I tried to drill them. The actual rivets were pretty strong.

I did find an easier solution, I simply pinched the inside fastener of the rivet off with a pair of Vise-Grips. These bent easily, and the rivets came out easily after that:


After these were off, I removed the leather strap holders on the bottom, and used a 5/16" drill bit and drilled the rivet holes out to fit the bolts. This didn't hurt the outer fabric much if at all.
(Note the punch near the left holes where my broken drill bit almost went through ) :


Now, I took the leather strap holders from the bottom, and drilled them out with the 5/16" bit as well. I also took my vinyl tubing, and cut a slot to allow it to fit over the U-bolts:


Next, I took a smaller bit (5/32", I believe), and drilled holes in one end of each U-bolt. This wasn't too bad, the metal was pretty soft and went easier than I thought.
This easily fit the little Master-Lock padlocks I found at Home Depot as well:


Finally, all that was left was to mount it to the back. I put the U-bolt on, then slid the leather strap holders, then the bag itself, the metal U-bolt brace, a nylon washer, a bolt, and then finally the lock and a bolt protector.

Here's a shot of the inside:


Here's a shot of the underside:


And finally, here's the whole thing completed:


Hope this helps out someone else looking at doing something similar!

youve made me want to chuck the topbox away and get one of these!!!!

could we have a few more shots from different angles of it fitted to the scooter pweeeeze? and what can you fit in it? would be good to know

thanks for this mate! 8) bloody brill!

Great solution

How does it look with the GTV leather seat ?

Can the bag take a FF ?

I just did something similar with the exact same bag. One thing I did differently, though, was to dip the u-bolts in Plasti-Dip coating instead of using tubing. I also put a little dollop of it on the ends of the bolt instead of caps. I wish that I'd taken pics while I was doing it.

Same method, same bag, same bike, same color. Works pretty darn well for me. Though, I cheated a little and hot-glued a Piaggio patch over the SX logo. Nobody knows the difference, but I like it.

As for fitting a helmet, that will depend a lot on the helmet. I generally wear a size small, and that seems to fit with very little clearance. If I have a jacket folded up underneath it in the case, it generally won't fit. Has to be by itself.

Funny, I had the exact same idea!



I just haven't decided if I'm going to iron it on, yet. It's a nice bag, and I think SX should get some credit.

I'll post some more pics in a while. It doesn't match the seat as well as I would like, but it's not bad. I may look into dying the bag darker.

If you're able to dye the bag, please do make an extensive post about it here! The Colorado sun is pretty brutal (as we're technically closer to it), and my bag has faded a lot more than any other photos of it I've seen anywhere on MV. I don't mind that it has faded, as pretty much everything here does, so I don't count it as a flaw of the bag itself (actually, it'd be kind of weird if it didn't fade). But it would be nice to get it back to a bit darker of a color, if it's possible without too much trouble.

I tried dying my faded black bag with black leather dye and a paint brush. It came out reasonably well, but is a little mottled. Try my best, I couldn't get the tone really even.