Series 4 Li150 – The Joker

I bought my Li Series 4 off eBay for £3200. I went up to Manchester to collect it one evening. It looked good in the pictures with a dark blue paint job offset with chrome fitting under the panels. Shortly after getting it back home I discovered that the paintwork was lifting off the floorboards, pretty much lifting as a sheet!

I took the Li to a local business; Sean’s Paint shop in Wallingford, where it had the paintwork stripped and a total respray in blue candy apple with Lambretta logos and insignia ghosted onto the bodywork. I wanted a Lambretta badge ghosted onto the legshields, which was duly supplied, but on the inside of the legshields instead of the front of them. Which means that a bit of artwork is hidden by the inside legshield spare wheel carrier!

I suppose the sprayer misinterpreted what it was I wanted! I then took the scooter to Darren at Liquidblack who airbrushed the Joker and England flag murals on the front of the legshields. When I first got my Series 4 I didn’t realise that it was a very rare Innocenti production model. Researching it, I soon found out as much as I could about it. Apparently there were only around 1400 of them made. It was only made as a Li 125. It’s got the later, GP type push-in fork buffers which are in keeping with the frame number.

While the respray was being done I had the engine stripped, checked and rebuilt. It has a Mugello 186 top end, tuned by Mike Mezz Moto, it’s been set up to run a 28mm Dellorto carb’ and a Sterling exhaust system. Once all back together I took my Series 4 to be set up on a dyno’, it puts out 18bhp, on a good day it’ll touch on 75mph top speed. It’s very reliable, never missed a beat I’ve clocked up more miles on the Series 4 than I have, so far, on my other scooters. Words & Photographs: Sarge