Lambretta LI 150

Here's the latest addition to the family and officially 'my new hobby!

121KNP is a 1962 Lambretta LI150. He's lived his entire life in Worcestershire with three previous owners all of whom lived within a mile of two of each other. Despite appearances it runs, starts and stops. But really its not at all bad considering its just been pulled out of a shed where its been sat since 1973! Lovers of patina will doubtless say 'leave it as it is' and I do understand....but it's already too late. The process of smartening him up has already begun. (But I do need to find a way of preserving that sticker you can see in the second picture which he's been proudly wearing since he was first sold in April 1962. by the dealer who is still there and now sells Yamahas

The reason I bought this one? Well he's the same age as me and is exactly the same model as the first ever vehicle I bought when I was 17, 40 years ago. That one cost £35. This one considerably more!

Lets scroll on to Autumn 2022 and fill in the intervening three years. Lock-down happened and as a result Scoot turned into 1000 separate parts in my shed. When I was 17 I didn't have the wherewithal or skill to do much work on my first scoots so this time I was determined to learn as much as I could. And it was certainly a learning curve that's for sure.

Its absolutely amazing what you get can now to refurbish your scooter. When I was a lad there was one shop 15 miles away in Kettering. Now there is an entire planet of internet parts suppliers, although most parts came from the excellent Scootopia just over the water in Weston-super-Mare. It would be easier to list the bits that weren't replaced rather than list those that were. But the fundamentals are still original - the frame, all the bodywork and the engine.

OK - as I said at the start, if you're a lover of patina and rust now's the time to look away or put the TV on.

I think it ended up looking really good. After a lot of messing about I managed to get it starting reliably and really enjoyed taking it out each Sunday morning for a 10 mile 'circuit of Penarth' blast. I could never get the speedo to work consistently so ended up downloading a speedo app to record my average times for the lap and maximum speeds on each run - 47 was the best I ever managed. I'm actually quite proud that I did everything myself including the paint and engine rebuild but mostly that, having taken it to bits, I managed to get it all back together again.

For me, its not the riding its the pottering that counts, so as soon as it was finished I knew I'd be selling it and that's exactly what happened. It now lives near Swansea. A very nice chap came up on the train and rode it back there. Only about 40 miles, but far and away the longest trip it had been on in decades. He has done a huge amount of work updating the engine and it sounds fantastic now - and it also has a disc brake conversion so will not only be much faster, but will stop too.

And that's it. My scootering days are over, and my Triumph Tiger days have just begun.

Just one more thing while were talking about scooters. Daughter Alice has found, goodness knows where, a picture or two of my second Scooter that I owed in 1980 (ish). This was, if memory serves, a Spanish built Servetta 200. Went from Northampton to Yarmouth and back on that once.