[Fiat&Me]

Originally Posted by Stanher

Is this a gearless scoot btw? And yes, as chanu says, they should enter our market, hope they do soon!

Bala and Shyam, Please read the news at www.burnyourfuel.com,

Also I am posting here...

"Piaggio will roll out its 100-150cc scooters including Vespa scooters in India by March 2010.
Piaggio will launch the most popular Vespa scooters followed by other brands like Gilera, Aprilia and Derbi, a small motorcycle.

Vespa scooters are entering into the Indian market for the third time after the agreement expired with Bajaj in 1960’s and tied up with LML brand to make geared scooters, but the joint venture was untied in 1999.
As per industry sources, The company is setting up a 360-crore two wheeler engine plant at Baramati to power its scooters and the Italian maker that makes Ape three and four wheelers called Ape Truk in its Baramati Plant.
The scooter segment is gearing up once again with the recently launched Rodeo and Duro from Mahindra 2 wheeler stable.
As Honda Scooters are doing well in India that sells 60000 units per month, out of which 15000 unit are with a single model, Hero Honda Pleasure.
The Italian auto manufacturer has planned to enter India once again after seeing the sales chart that increase month over month."

[chanu]

Thats a welcoming and good news kale saab, I am looking forward for the day. Infact Indian scooter market is almost diying up apart from the gearless scooters. At one point in time there were very few families without scooters and India regards this scooters (vespa, bajaj 150, priya, super, cub, cheatak, LML) as a middle class man's family car.

Lest hope third time re venture of Vespas into the Indian market must remain for years ahead.

[Scarlet_Rider]

Hi Bala,

If felt great to go through your thread. Vespa is one brand of scooters that is very popular throughout the world! With passionate people like you around, this brand will never die! Long live the Vespa!

Found a few interesting pictures of the Vespa along with movie stars. Even they could not resist the temptation of riding the great scooter. Here are pictures of Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd with the Vespa on the sets of one of the best movies of all time, Ben-Hur! Other pictures have legend John Wayne and the first Bond Girl, Ursula Andress. Finally the unforgettable Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck!

Regards,

Rahul Waghmare.

[chanu]

Thanks Rahul for the honour, I don't think I have done much for the brand "vespa" but infact this magnificant maching has done much to me, thanks Vespa, thanks "Flying Sparrow". Its a two wheeled joy, awesome build with simple technology. One pirtucular aspect which I like in this scooter is its turning radius is so short and easy you can 'U' turn with ease.

Scooters were middleclass family car, roads were beautiful with different shades of scooters until the bike era pushed scooters to a slow death. Every kind of working class people adapted them to their need and found it to be convenient i.e., milkman with two 35 lt cans delivering milk at door step, gas agent carriying two cylenders where an delivery auto cant go, battery guy showing up at a breakdown with service batter laden to it, what not the list is long.

I was talking to a old gentleman who took me to the time when he took the delivery of a 1970 Priya for 6200/- which he still drives wherein the actual price was somewhere around 3000-3500/-. It seems these scooters were sold in black for a premium price. This gentleman promised to give his scooter to me the day he feels he is done with scootering.

Such a magnificant marvel the scooter is, I will love to love it and love to drive it. I am not along you all are there so the scooter will live long and I am damn sure the scooter era will be reborn.

I am in persuit of a Vespa Sprint and this is being going on sincevery long time as I am not able to contact the owner but hope and pray he will shortly and would be able to comeup with something like this, please wish me luck guys.

[chanu]

Yes Sir, its for sale and the problem is that the owner is not revealing the price, he wants me to pay which can help him to take a religious trip to some holy place, which will be expensive. I still wanted to negotiate and get the baby home which is sitting idle at his friend's place. The scooter also has some vital parts missing like silencer, entire magnet, coils, meter which is unique similar to a size of a Luna or TVS. I am eager to get the scooter into my hand Ram Sir don't know when I will be able to reach the owner who stays somewhere in Maharashtra.

[chanu]

Today is the day the "thanks giving day" to my faithfull companion. It's been couple of years that she had a complete restoration and since 2 years I have been bothering my painter to get it have a fresh coat of paint, she used to be slightly pinkish which she lost during these years, now that the painter accepted my wish so is the start of a new look Vespa aka Sparrow in couple of days.

I am posting few pictures of her glorious days and now the stages of her restoration which got initiated today. wish me luck folks.

[Scarlet_Rider]

Hey Bala,

All the best with the restoration of your "Flying Sparrow"! What colour have you decided? Will it be the same one or is it a surprise for us? All the Best once again!

Regards,

Rahul Waghmare.

[hillram]

Bala..Im sure the Flying Sparrow will come through a fine restoration job.Are you considering a name change post restoration?

[Stanher]

Originally Posted by chanu

Today is the day the "thanks giving day" to my faithfull companion.
is the start of a new look Vespa aka Sparrow in couple of days.

I am posting few pictures of her glorious days and now the stages of her restoration which got initiated today. wish me luck folks.

Good going Bala! Eager to see your 'sparrow' with its new plumage! I guess Vespas dont take too long/much effort to restore? Or maybe not?

Also if I might suggest, why not name her something like pink sparrow? 'Flying' sounds a tad redundant with 'sparrow'...since a sparrow would anyway fly, as you too had once told me when we met.

[chanu]

Wow! lovely my family is here, I was sure you folks will be there with me. Thanks guys.

Originally Posted by Scarlet_Rider

Hey Bala,

All the best with the restoration of your "Flying Sparrow"! What colour have you decided? Will it be the same one or is it a surprise for us? All the Best once again!

Regards,

Rahul Waghmare.

Thanks Rahul, the colour would remain same but I thought of powder blue for the scooter and my Fiat Delight (both Italians) but later refrained to the same colour. My scooter has got good finish as it is and it was painted by a very professional painter so I don't want to spoil it, by the by the same painter is painting it for the second time. The only reason to repaint is because it has lost that pinkish shade which she used to and was close to my heart.

Originally Posted by hillram

Bala..Im sure the Flying Sparrow will come through a fine restoration job.Are you considering a name change post restoration?

I hope so Ram, yes I am considering of a name change. I thought of removing "flying" as sparrows do for sure. I thought of this name "sparrow" by looking at the domes they have the sparrows body shape (my way of looking at the wasp)

Originally Posted by Stanher

Good going Bala! Eager to see your 'sparrow' with its new plumage! I guess Vespas dont take too long/much effort to restore? Or maybe not?

Also if I might suggest, why not name her something like pink sparrow? 'Flying' sounds a tad redundant with 'sparrow'...since a sparrow would anyway fly, as you too had once told me when we met.

Yes Shyam you are right, Vespa's or to that matter scooters don't take much time to restore until and unless they are absued. My scooter is well maintained so most of the parts are retained. I am not removing the channels on the foot board because I need to remove the rivets to do so I need to remove the rubbers which tend to break so the next bright idea to save them is to mask it while painting. Off late I realised "flying sparrow" is not appropriate, I have a passion naming my vehicles and all the beauties have names.

How about this "The Sparrow" I am not sure about the grammer as can we have a adjective before a noun? whatever I am loving it, your suggestions please (family members)

[chanu]

I personally dismantled the entire scooter but the best part was it's front suspension, it still has the vespa embossed on it. My scooter is still running on the original suspension pin and also the copper bushes. Last time I got all the nuts, bolts, front suspension spring white zinc oxide but this time decided to get it chrome them, apart from that the gear and accelator yoke also will be chromed to give the scooter the grand look.

[chanu]

Finally the scooter was left at the paint shop, it gave me a proud feeling when the painter appraised the way the scooter is maintained, he recalled the days when this scooter was initially painted with him in 2004. He also suggested shades like (powder blue or some green) but later decided to go with the same colour.

I could see the body underneath the center floor mat is rusted which was a shock to me luckly the damage is not extensive thank god that we thought of painting, this time I have decided not have the center mat made up of rubber but will put the LML center mat which is made up of plastic with easy to clean screw system, the one in the picture below.

[Stanher]

Originally Posted by chanu

I personally dismantled the entire scooter but the best part was it's front suspension, it still has the vespa embossed on it.

Wow, this is the first time I'm noticing somehting like this on a Vespa fork!!

You are one lucky chap, bala! Your Vespa still has the original fork/suspension, I guess there are many that have these changed.

[chanu]

Originally Posted by Stanher

Wow, this is the first time I'm noticing somehting like this on a Vespa fork!!

You are one lucky chap, bala! Your Vespa still has the original fork/suspension, I guess there are many that have these changed.

Thanks Shyam, but I've seen it on couple of other vespas also, but most of the scooters tend loose them.

Ok What happens is these forks have a vulnearable point which I have marked with blue in the picture below where it tends to break but only when there is no proper lubrication done to suspension pin and pin bearings. It works like this when the suspension pin is not lubricated then it tends to become rigid and there is no action then when the load is applied the weakest point tends to break (blue marked area) and there is no cure though people do some welding kind but its just eye wash it's not the cure except replacing the entire set.

The reason front hub is my favourite because it has the most of the mechanism. It has the suspension pin with the 2 pin bearings to have a see saw action with shock absorber on one side and the other side with a spring. Apart from that there is another mechanism which is the speedometer inside the hub and finally the break, that what makes this front hub multi tasking equipment and my fav. I need to thank the previous owner from the bottom of my heart who had maintained it original and pat myself to find this master peice.

Apart from front hub having vespa embossed there are several other parts like fan, outer engine chamber, clutch cover which has the PIAGGIO name or logo embossed, I am attaching pictures for your reference.

[Scarlet_Rider]

Bala, nice to see your scooter having all the original parts especially the front suspension! This will make your scooter unique among most Vespas. Good that you spotted the rust underneath the body on time. How is the restoration progress going on? Do post some pictures.