Time Travelers : Young Vespa Owners Hitch a Ride on Scooter’s Counterculture Nostalgia
They’re not Harleys. And that suits enthusiasts like Brea Olinda High junior Ryan Parker who, as he says, “wouldn’t get caught riding one of those things.”
A member of the latest generation of Vespa and Lambretta scooter riders, the 17-year-old favors the style of the Italian-made motorbikes. The Piaggio-designed Vespa hit the streets in 1936, with a pressed, one-piece metal frame hailed as a technical breakthrough at the time. The similar-looking Lambretta, boasting a slightly larger frame with all its amenities bolted on, debuted a decade later.
Aficionados such as Ryan relish the way the curved front column sways to the side when the scooter is parked. There’s the overall silhouette that changes slightly from year to year, just enough to distinguish the two models. Beatniks in the ‘50s toyed with the image, as did British Mods in the early ‘60s and counterculture duplicators thereafter.
Ryan can hit 70 m.p.h. on his fully stocked 1965 Lambretta TV200. It has taken him several times to San Bernardino, where he cruises with fellow scooter riders, and home again to Brea.
At a weekend rally that kicked off last Saturday at Midnight Expresso in downtown Huntington Beach, owners of 47 Vespas and Lambrettas lined up their scooters in front of the coffeehouse and across the street.
It seemed like a chapter from the scooter history catalogue, with models from the late 1950s to 1981--the last model year Piaggio imported its classic two-wheelers to the United States. Two years before that, Lambretta ceased production. (In 1981, a law passed in California prohibiting the import of street-legal, two-stroke engines of 50cc and larger because the gas and oil mixture they burn generates high amounts of pollutants. With 90% of Piaggio’s business in this state--accounting for 2% of its international business--the company pulled out of the country.)
That’s part of the cachet for Ryan and others who ride. The limited number of Vespas and Lambrettas in the States suggests exclusivity. Wherever they go, the drivers get noticed, Ryan notes. “It doesn’t matter how old or young a person is, they know it’s something cool.”
Assemble a group of five or 50 and watch them invade the road en masse, and you’ll find a roaring illustration of strength in numbers. Forget packs of common motorbikes that anyone can buy. The thrill here is about the rarity of these classics.
Rallies let owners and fans get together and talk shop, catch up on each other’s lives and, best of all, ride. They come from all over: Last weekend’s rally drew riders from San Diego and Fontana, as well as around Orange County.
Some, such as Cypress High senior Erick Strege, attend even though their scooters are disassembled in pieces in their garage. While a dozen local scooter owners meet at Midnight Expresso every Wednesday evening, it’s these larger events they come to cherish. Happening monthly or more frequently during the warmer months, rallies are their ever-mobile scene.
“People at school don’t understand what it’s all about,” says Ryan, who frequently rides with his neighbor, Canyon High senior John Mayo, 18, who owns two Vespas. “They ask me what I did on the weekend, and I tell them I went to a scooter rally. ‘A scooter rally?’ they say. ‘That’s cool.’ But I don’t think they understand what it’s about. They don’t understand it’s coming from the heart.”
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Consider the scooter a first love for people such as Edison High senior Daniel Arroyo. For him, it was a 1970 Vespa 150 Super Sport his brother gave him five years ago when Daniel was 13. He’s painted it black, detailed the body with scorching flames and won a slew of awards for it at rallies.
But wait. There’s more. Daniel, now 18, owns two Lambrettas, three other Vespas and co-owns another with his boss. “I own the garage,” he says with a laugh about displacing his family’s cars at their Huntington Beach home.
He keeps a few at his employer’s, Go Fast Scooters, which recently moved to Huntington Beach from Anaheim, where it opened in 1986. The shop is one of only a handful in the county--which includes the oldest authorized Piaggio dealer in the nation, Scooterville, U.S.A. in Anaheim--that sells parts, services and rebuilds and sells used scooters.
Daniel says he has spent every free minute at Go Fast for the past four years, building and maintaining scooters.
“My pride is my ’67 Lambretta SX200 in black,” he gushes. “Aesthetically, I love it--and, mechanically, it can smoke anything on the road.” At 80 m.p.h.? Possibly he means because it looks better than anything on the road. Or maybe he’s referring to the toxic black fumes these Italian scooters leave in their wake.
While most scooters keep pace at half that speed, others, modified for racing, can reach 95 m.p.h. These high-performance scooters are regularly tested at tracks in races sanctioned by the American Scooter Racing Assn., an organization formed in 1987 to promote this fast-growing sport. But it’s out of the league, financially and logistically, for most high school scooter owners to participate in.
They can wait. Fortunately, these rides are built to last--at least until they need rebuilding again. Part of their appeal is their reliability. They can last 30,000 miles with minor maintenance before they needing rebuilding. “And then you’re off again,” Daniel says.
“Not everybody could own a Vespa or Lambretta,” he continues. “It takes a certain character--the kind of person who actually wants to get down on their hands and knees and get dirty for their scooters.”
Ryan, too, proudly does all his own maintenance on his Lambretta, which he picked up in running condition for an unbelievable $150. The offers he gets for from five to 10 times that amount only reinforce his owner satisfaction.
Because parts can become expensive--a tire can run from $25 to $49--especially for a high schooler working part-time as a “sandwich artist” at Subway, Ryan takes prevention maintenance seriously. “I won’t ride it unless it’s in ready condition,” he says.
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Still not convinced why anyone wouldn’t just settle for a put-putting Honda or Riva? Vespa and Lambretta enthusiasts say their scooters can claim a heritage no counterpart can rival.
Although they were being imported to the United States along with other Italian-style symbols in the early ‘50s, it’s the British Mods of a decade later that ensured their place in counterculture history. Around 1962, Mods began reacting to greasy Rockers wielding loud motorcycles. They wore smart suits, obsessed over accouterments such as cigarette cases and mirrors attached to their scooters and rioted in bloody feuds against rockers during bank holidays in otherwise sleepy coastal towns.
The Who chronicled this culture (and its roots) in “Quadrophenia” in 1979, giving rise to another wave of Modness and its offshoots (ska, Oi and others) from London to Garden Grove. Vespas and Lambrettas were right there with them.
So was Daniel’s brother David, with the pre-flamed Super Sport. But, unlike his sibling, Daniel says: “I was never into the fashion or the Mod scene. I was a scooter boy from the start.”
While the current scene includes many old-timer Mods (as in, those age 24 to 30), there’s a constant renewal of younger participants such as Daniel and Ryan. Music affiliation and specific clothes matter less now as folks from a range of interests connect based on their love for their scooters.
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At last Saturday’s event, riders cruised from downtown Huntington to San Pedro and back to Santa Ana, ending up at a post-rally party in the Bat Cave, a warehouse inhabited by a twentysomething scooter enthusiast. There, punk and Oi bands played into the night, and Ryan was asked to joined the Steady Fast Scooter Club, a Fontana-based club. He met some of the members at the Specials show last year, and he’s been riding with them for some time.
The following day, everyone blazed to the Scooter Cafe in downtown Fullerton for the award presentation and more entertainment.
So if Piaggio ever designs a model fitting the state’s emission standards, will these younger scooter boys and girls forgo their vintage models for something new?
“Never,” says Ryan, adding quickly: “Not that I’d turn it away.” A fan of classic machinery, he envisions his future spent elbow-deep restoring classic cars--with a scooter repair business on the side.
Would he ever consider any two-wheeled machine besides his Lambretta? Pausing for a moment, he responds: “Oh yeah, I’ve been thinking about getting a Vespa.”
* The Scene is a weekly look at the trends and lifestyles of Orange County high schoolers.
