Message from scootculture team - The picture at the foot of this page and article arrived with me, it was accompanied with a pleasant letter from John. Amongst other things the letter said that if I didn't wish to use the entire article then I could précis it, (summarize it). Reading the article I found it very interesting and it soon became apparent that John had taken some time and trouble to compile it. I felt, that for these reasons, the full version deserved to be published . . .

Lambretta Li 150 – 63 MPL

This photo was taken on the 3^rd September 1966, 18 days before my 18^th birthday in Twickenham. The Scooter is of course an early series 11 Li 150 registered circa 1959/60. I bought the scooter second-hand in the previous summer from a motor cycle shop in London Road Kingston upon Thames. The price was £ 50.00p I was given a part exchange allowance of £ 15.00 on my first scooter, which was a Vespa 125 VL3T – circa 1958. At the time I was working through my summer holiday as a lifesaver at Twickenham swimming pool. The balance of £ 35.00p was nearly four weeks week’s wages in 1965. The scooter was hand painted in red and blue with twin seats and a bent front mudguard and dented leg shields.

During the summer of 65, I proceeded to strip all the panels to bare metal, intending to lacquer the bare metal, and leave that as a finish. Copious quantities of Nitromors paint stripper cans were consumed and my hands soon became immune to the burning of the product. Numerous happy hours were spent listening to Radio London applying the stripper and rubbing down. In the end there were so many blemishes in the steel of the Scooter that I decided to paint it light blue and copper, with some of the alloy parts polished. A gray primer was applied, along with three topcoats of Woolworth’s household light blue spray cans, carefully rubbing down between coats. The finish was certainly passable and when dressed the scooter did receive some admiration. I managed to straighten the leg shields, but could not do anything with the front mudguard. I therefore decided to fit a cycle mudguard, for practicality. The headstock was polished alloy, as was the horn casing. The copper paint was applied to the horn cover, the central rib of the leg shields with two stripes of copper along the side panels. The only extras I added this year were a fly screen and a dual seat. 

At the end of the summer I returned to boarding school and took my ‘scoot’ with me. This was strictly against the rules, except for dayboys, so I ‘loaned’ my scooter to one of the dayboys, but used it myself on numerous occasions to ride home the 17 miles from Mill Hill to Twickenham. This enabled me to see my girlfriend more than the allocated three times a term. It is ironic that after this total flouting of school rules I was appointed a prefect the next term! During one of those journeys however I had a slightly amusing if somewhat worrying incident. In the day I had removed the flywheel to clean the points. Not knowing what I was doing I had also removed the fins on the flywheel, by removing the two little Allen grub screws I replaced them of course, but failed to tighten them properly. This resulted in them working loose under centrifugal force, a horrible noise ensued and eventually the engine seized I was on the North Circular at the time. I decided to push the vehicle the eight miles home, forgetting, at first, that to do so I would have to push the scooter past the ‘ Ace Café ‘! -  I had no choice I had to go on!

The word must have gone out prior to my arrival, because as I approached ‘The Ace Café’ on the other side of the road, the occupants of the café came out into the car park, and proceeded to jeer and laugh. I was nervous, to say the least, but in fairness however after I had passed two “ Rockers” came up on there Bikes and one offered to tow me home whilst the other would ride behind me, as I had no lights. I was still concerned but accepted their offer. However, I was home in a little over twenty minutes, and my fears were unfounded. So the stories about “ Mods and Rockers “ being total adversaries is not true.

I left school the following June, and returned to my job as a lifesaver at Twickenham, until I took up my career in September 1966. During that summer I started to really dress the scooter. Unfortunately it broke down in August 1966 and I had to leave it in a pub car park, in Slough, overnight. When I returned, the next evening most of the removable items – HAD BEEN. This photo was taken a little while afterwards.

I draw your attention to a few items that may be of interest. It was common on Vespas with their single sided front suspension mount to put a wheel trim on the other side; this was not so easy on a Lambretta. The most common trim was a one-piece mini wheel trim. I fitted one of those to my Lammy by drilling a hole in the center of the trim and putting a rubber grommet in it, cutting out the centre of the grommet to fit around the shaft. Also in those days we had to paint white walls on the tyres! Also you may be able to see that the fly screens in those days had a chrome trim round the Perspex. You cannot see it in this photograph, but I had fitted chrome GS rear light with the stop light over the main rear light. I also claim probably erroneously to have started the union jack trend for seats, although they were used on Parka’s before then. You may be able to see that the Union Jacks in this picture are in fact real flags tucked over the seat and round the spare wheel. My idea came from the Jacket worn by Pete Entwhistle on the front of the “ My Generation “ album, and the fact that my Dad had several flags left over from the Coronation. Being of Scots descent, when manufacturers started producing Union Jack seats, I switched to the “ Lion Rampant ” but that one never caught on. One thing you will not see is that at this stage my Lammy was fitted with a Series 1, TV 175 engine, which I had acquired after the Li engine had seized. It was a straight swap, or should have been, had I not been clumsy, and broken the alloy swing arm bolt bracket when hammering through the swing arm bolt. Fortunately my father managed to get the casing alloy welded and I was a great deal more careful mounting the engine second time round.

After this photo was taken and throughout the remainder of 66, 67 and 68, I progressively dressed my Scoot. In its final form it remained the same Colour. I added a series 1 horn casing with headlight and mounted a spotlight on the cycle mudguard. Forward facing reversing lights were mounted on the fly screen retaining bolts, and painted amber to act as the forward indicators, whilst I managed to mount ‘Jaguar’ lights on the side panels for rear indicators, again far more common addition to Vespas than Lambrettas. The indicators were powered by a six-volt flasher unit and operated by a non-cancelling three-way switch. Front and rear crash bars were fitted and also Florida bars, an additional spare wheel carrier was mounted inside the leg shields, blue and white candy stripe legshield rubbers were fitted together with the obligatory blue and white check mudflap. An exhaust was fitted that had slash cut pipes down both sides of the engine casing, and a high back rest, small pad type, was also fitted. With all this extra weight my Lammy was not the fastest but she did catch the eye. and after the fitting of the 175 engine proved totally reliable. My only attempt at tuning was to remove the head gasket “ to increase compression “ sealing the head with Red Hermatite, and to polish the ports as best as I could with Emery paper and autosol polish!

In the end the engine got tired and I grew up! (I sometimes wonder if I ever grew up!) and I sold my scoot in early 69. I then had a six-month affair with a BSA Road Rocket until I got a car for my 21^st Birthday.

I nearly always rode alone, never with other ‘Mods’ but I did sometimes ride with ‘Rockers’, believe it or not, but that is another story. 

May all living Vespas and Lambrettas live on forever and all ‘ You killed me Scooter(s) ‘ be raised from their graves to ride again!

John A. , 24^th February 2000

John, aged 17 on his Lambretta in 1966