There
must have been a reason why I have decided to sell the red D racer I had
built a while ago and it was even featured in Scootering mag. This is the
reason and the story is quite funky. This Lambretta has been put on Ebay
by its owner three times and for my big surprise it never sold. Well the
pictures where not the best, but they were enough to understand what it
was about and much to my surprise it had not a bid all the three times.
It was very tempting to me, although I thought "I have another so why bother?".
But you know when you have the bug you can't resist so I mailed the owner
asking if he was open to an offer. He said yes he restored the bike 10
years ago (as it was before!), had never used it since and didn't have
the space to store it. So I sent a deposit and we arranged a meet up to
collect the bike. It was when I saw it that I realised it was not a replica,
but it was a genuine 50s built machine. The owner explained he purchased
it from a man who did the Milan-Taranto on it in the bygone days (you can
notice the two little holes in the tool box to mount the number plate).
The bike itself features so many period accessories I have never seen together
on a bike, such as drop bars, speedo, turning light, front and rear dampers,
extra funky in-line spare wheel carrier, dual seat, wind screen and the
engine had been originally treated to an LD stator conversion and remote
coil in the toolbox as I did on mine. Which tells me I did a good job.
I kept from mine the Abarth exhaust, although this was fitted with another
big bore which is even better for performance and the high compression
head.
This
bike has been treated to a full nuts and bolts restoration, but has not
been done as I intend it to so I will be repainting it again and although
the engine needs run in I will be doing some changes and I will try to
locate an extra tank for it. |
