Dominator Sometimes the desire never leaves you
In the late 70s and early 80s the UK saw a resurgence in the scooter scene. Coupled with this, the period saw numerous scooter dealers offering their own dealer specials. These scooters were ground-breakers and were simply ‘must haves’...
Through her teenage years, and influenced by her cousin who had a Jet 200 Jane Adams had always been interested in scooters. The opportunity for Jane to get her own scooter presented itself to her in August 1981 when she bought an SX150 from a friend who lived in her town. “Before I got the SX150 I was riding round on a Honda 90 and all the lads used to laugh at me.” Jane explained. “I bought the scooter for £220 but it kept breaking down and I got sick of it. I ended up taking it back to the fella who sold it to me and he gave me £200 back!”
Living in Northallerton, the main dealer in the area was Reghams in York and after a visit to Reghams two weeks later Jane came away with a brand new GP150. “The colour was pretty bad, and it cost me £900 but I was on the road with a reliable scooter,” Jane said.
Love at first sight
Jane explained that while she was in Reghams showroom buying the GP she saw one of their yellow ‘Dominators’ on display. “It looked fantastic, the paint job was amazing and I knew it was the scooter I would always dream of having, but it was £1300 and it was well out of my budget.”
After owning the GP150 for around three weeks Jane set off with some friends on her first scooter rally, Colwyn Bay 1981. “It was fun; but it was wet, windy, and rainy.” And around the same time,
Jane’s cousin bought himself the yellow Dominator from Reghams. “His scooter looked amazing and it made the colour scheme of mine look even worse!” Jane said.
Paint jobs
Jane explained that she’d always wanted to have a pink scooter, so she decided to take matters into her own hands. “I took the scooter to our garage and set about it with some wet and dry paper. I’d started doing the job myself, but at the time I was working in a nightclub and there was a fella I knew who went in the club, who happened to be a painter and decorator. He heard about the scooter and offered to do the paint job for me for free! But I soon realised why he wasn’t charging me; when I got the scooter back it wasn’t lacquered and it was as rough as anything!” Jane laughed.
Jane decided to have another go at painting the scooter herself. She went back into the garage and gave it a ‘rattle-can’ pink and blue paint job. However, the scooter didn’t stay that colour for long, and with a ‘rattle-canupgrade’ Jane decided that she would paint it blue ready for the 1982 Morecambe scooter rally, which was again a wet and windy affair.
With her scooter now painted in a fetching shade of blue Jane still wasn’t 100% happy, so she went back to Reghams to see if they would give her scooter a ‘Dominator’ paint job. Reghams agreed, and the scooter was sent off to Maca for the paintwork to be done and ‘Little Queenie’ was born.
Throughout the early 1980s Jane was an avid rally going scooterist, and certainly put the miles in, but probably sick of the wet and windy UK weather she ended up selling the scooter in 1984 (a decision that she has always regretted since) to fund a holiday trip to Spain.
Every cloud has a silver lining
On holiday, Jane met her husband-to-be and in 1986 she moved to Spain. In 1987 they had a daughter and in 1989 they had a son, but in light of some of personal family issues Jane moved back to Northallerton in 1990.
“After we’d got back to Northallerton I was always bumping into people and they kept on asking me if I’d like to get back into the scootering scene. Of course I always did want to get back into scootering, it never leaves you, but I’d never had the time to get back into it due to family commitments.
“While I’d been away I’d always kept in touch with what was going on in the scene through friends and the girls who I used to hang around with in the day.”
Dominator influences
By 2017 Jane was back into the scene; and with the ‘Dominator bug’ still in her veins she did some research to try and locate ‘Little Queenie’, but without joy. So later that year Jane bought herself another Lambretta; a GP200, which she wanted spraying as a Dominator. Eager to get a professional paint job Jane approached Colin Fitzgerald to do the job. “I asked if he could complete it in a spearmint and turquoise ‘Dominator’ paint scheme!” Jane laughed. “But; diplomatically, Colin advised me that these colours would clash and said that he could complete the paintwork for me in turquoise.”
Authenticity
As a matter of courtesy, knowing that the original Dominator paint jobs had been done by Maca, Jane contacted Maca to check that he was in agreement for Colin to complete the paintwork, which he was.
To get the paintwork absolutely perfect Jane asked Maca for some photographs of the original Dominators for Colin to work from. “I got the scooter back by May 2018; my brother built it up, it looked perfect. However, I was concerned that others might not think I’d been previously into the scene. I thought some might think I was one of those people who’d just got a bit of cash and bought a scooter; but for me, scootering is all about riding a scooter and going to scooter rallies. My mates said: “Don’t worry about it, just tell them you’re a veteran and they’ll soon realise!”
Sunny skies
Jane didn’t tell her husband about the scooter until she was sunbathing one sunny afternoon in the garden. “The scooter was parked by the side of the house and my husband came home with our son. He said: “Who’s here?” (Meaning the scooter), I explained the whole story to him and he was absolutely made up for me: Maca’s seen a picture of my scooter, he said: “It’s mint!” with a smile on her face Jane added: “I’m sure there was no pun intended!”