Skip to main contentThe one thing vintage Vespa owner Tracy Ball would like everyone to know about scooter enthusiasts? "We're not just a fad. So deal."
Hear that? Deal.
Lately, Portlanders of every stamp--from parka punks to mild-mannered commuters--seem to be hopping on. Now, with the debut of Portland's first boutique for all-new Vespas in the plush Pearl District, Vespa Portland, trend-friendly indicators show that this once lowly vehicle has revved up to become a true specimen of 21st-century transport.
The first Vespas emerged in 1946 from war-bruised Italy. With most of the country's roads blasted to chowder by World War II shelling, mobility-loving Italians needed a simple, economical vehicle. What former aeronautics manufacturer Enrico Piaggio produced was a 98-cc, two-stroke, three-gear scooter that could reach 60 kilometers per hour. It could be driven as easily by women as by men without soiling anyone's crisp chinos. The first Vespa (which means "wasp," for the scooter's hallmark engine buzz) perfectly married convenience with elegance and became a powerful symbol of Italy's renewed national pride.
But vintage Vespas, while lovable, can be notorious polluters. The new ET4 scooters have cleaner-burning, four-stroke, 150-cc engines. They're all automatic, with few wearing parts and tubeless tires. Like all scooters, they have a low center of gravity, which makes them an incredibly stable ride. Add on nods to the sweet styling of their vintage predecessors (retro paint hues, commodious seat storage, purse hook) and the new Vespas tug at the heartstrings.
However you feel about the new bikes, evidence suggests that scooters' exploding popularity has improved practical matters for many of its vintage riders.
Ball, a marketing-communications executive and owner of a '59 silver Vespa 150, observes, "Just three years ago, it was hard to get parts for vintage scooters. Now, Portland has [four or five] shops." In a very mod move, Vespa's manufacturer, Piaggio, still carries parts for its discontinued two-stroke P200 so that vintage riders can keep their old scoots on the road.
This semi-harmonious pluralism seems to be what fuels "scooter culture," a loose label for any of several distinct scenes on the road. Ball breaks it down to "mods" (riders who ape the aesthetic of that paean to scootering in mod '60s London, Quadrophenia, and keep their bikes and suits immaculate--a rare type in P-town), "scooter punks" (a.k.a. "scooter trash," the tattooed true inheritors of the riotous Quadrophenia lifestyle), and "Patagucci," scootering's newest enthusiasts. The Patagucci buy the newest Vespas and shell out for highbrow accessories, like a $500 leather Piaggio helmet bag. Modest spenders can shop the Vespa Portland boutique for coordinated leather keychains ($28) and coffee mugs ($6.50).
Is there any tension between vintage scooter owners and the Vespa virgins?
Ball chooses to emphasize the positive.
"I'm all for new scooters and scooterists," Ball says. "Scooters are sexy little machines with a lot of cosmopolitan flair. And they can vary so much depending on paint jobs, accessories and the era in which they were built."
As a vintage rider who cringes to admit she once coveted a boxy Honda Elite back in the '80s, Ball adds, "I think it's stupid to be snotty to riders because they just started doing it or because they aren't riding a 40-year-old machine. We all have been newbies at one time or another.
Model year notwithstanding, the affection scooterists lavish on these two-wheeled wonders transcends typical vehicle love.
Naturalmente.
Vespa Portland
226 NW 12th Ave., 222-3779
P-Town Scooters
(Italian motor scooters, service and parts)
1725 NW Quimby St., 241-4745
PDX generates more hits for www.vespausa.com than the entire state of California.
Kenny Giambalvo, Bluehour chef and recent proud parent of a bone - colored, camel - leathered 2002 ET2, has christened his "Audrey."
WWeek 2015