First Class

We’re all being encouraged to recycle, a concept Aaron Mitchell’s taken to heart with a scooter that may look vaguely familiar.

In December 2011, Scootering featured one of our more unusual backdrops, a fairground ride. Back then Frazer Day was a fairground artist who dabbled in custom vehicles and one of the first scooters to receive his attention was a GP Lambretta owned by Aaron Mitchell. Having struck up a friendship, the two agreed to transfer the artwork Fraser had recently applied to a state-of-the-art fairground ride, namely William Danter’s ‘Extreme’, to the GP, and it surpassed the expectations of both owner and painter. The ‘scream if you want to go faster’ murals transferred onto the GP’s lines perfectly with its fresh style, winning favour at custom shows and perhaps more importantly with Mitch’s grandchildren.

Fast forward a few years and Frazer now operates as Envy Customs which has rapidly built up an enviable reputation for quality, turnaround times and price. The Leicester based artist now concentrates on custom vehicles, only dabbling in fairground art when an irresistible commission comes his way. Mitch is a regular client and the pair have produced several stunning customs including ‘The Troubles’, also featured in Scootering. Although he’s a serial builder of custom scooters, Mitch isn’t a man to hide away his treasures. In the guise of Extreme, the GP covered many miles and was seen at many rallies. It’s a measure of how dynamic the current custom scene is that even the most innovative machines become stale fairly quickly. “I wanted to refresh Extreme but didn’t have the time or inclination for a full rebuild” explained Mitch, “One of my grandchildren is obsessed with X-Men and looking at the Extreme scheme with its ‘X’ motifs I thought it lent itself to an easy rename!”

So a pair of GRP fibre glass panels were bought for X-Men theme. Although they’re the only part of the scooter to have been subjected to a makeover, the transformation is astounding. “The first time I took it out people thought it was a fresh build,” laughed Mitch.

It proves that with a little imagination it’s possible to refresh a well-known custom at little cost. It also illustrates what a difference a pair of panels can make, so this year treat yourself to a custom job. There’s no need for a new scooter, just recycle what you already own.