Feature Scooter: DTC Schizo-Psycho
One of the iconic custom scooters of the 80s Scooterboy era has to be the Down Town Custom. Rosa Bianca, street racer Lambretta.
One of the iconic custom scooters of the 80s Scooterboy era has to be the Down Town Custom, Rosa Bianca street racer Lambretta… and this one's a beaut!
Along with the Armandos Special Vespa, the DTC street racer Lambretta was the ultimate street scooter for many young, rally-going Scooterboys to both lust after and aspire to. They were designed and created by Brendan ‘Maca' McNally with his business partner Dave Barnett at their Leedsbased custom scooter paintwork business. What became DTC Rosa Bianca livery was based on Maca's own racing Lambretta, which itself came about when the Rosa Bianca scooter racing team formed, from out of Leeds Central. All team members' race machines were treated to a similar paint design. From this, demand grew for it to be replicated on street racer scooters from the mid-80s onwards. More than 40 replicas, each individually numbered, were produced, painted by Maca during the golden era. After getting all scootered out, Maca stepped back, some distance too, from the scooter scene in the early 90s, taking a break of some 15 years. In the interim DTC copies, and imposters made in India, were being offered for sale. On his return, in 2007, out of a demand that was awaiting, Maca created the DTC New Breed Rosa Bianca, a reinvigorated, updated version of his 80s classic. Jon Goddard was one of the aforementioned who possessed aspirations to, one day, own and ride a DTC Rosa Bianca street racer, painted of course, by the master himself, Maca – a desire that has stayed with him from his very first national rally experience, Disc 86. “I always wanted a DTC from my early days on the scene. When Maca resurfaced, it became an absolute must for me. I went for a classic DTC paint layout, instead of the New Breed, but adding my own spin to it by having Maca paint it in bright colours. I've always liked flake paint too, so it's not only in
bright colours, it's in flake too.”
Obviously, with the long-stroke crank, the base of the barrel needed a 10mm packing plate at the casing mouth, as well as the Avanti cylinder head. It gives me a clearance of only two or three millimetres, it’s a tight fit!
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The base machine for Jon's DTC street racer is a 1969 Innocenti Grand Prix, which rolled off the production line in Milan as a 150cc model. Jon bought it as a box of bits from Marco at Scooter Emporium in 2014. Work started pretty much as soon as he got it all, although it was a very much on and off project over quite a long time. Patience, it's said, is a virtue, in which case Jon must be one of the most virtuous scooterists anywhere on the planet. He first discussed with Maca what he wanted for his DTC, which was having it painted in the original style, but with brighter colours, in metal flake. Then after dropping off all the parts, which included many carbon fibre parts, with Maca for him to work his magic, it was a two-year wait before the finished parts were ready to collect. “It wasn't only the paintwork that took longer than expected, the whole project was a long haul. From the colours I originally wanted which included purple, Maca convinced me to change my mind, as he'd just painted another one in a similar paint combination. He had some flake left over from the 80s, a pink flake, which was used on mine with
different candy on top. Partway through spraying my scooter, Maca went off on holiday in his camper van, during which he was taken ill. This caused a bit of a delay as he needed to recover and recuperate before finishing off painting my DTC. Despite it taking longer than both I or Maca anticipated, the end result turned out better than I hoped. Since Maca came back to painting scooters, he started a new sequence of numbers, mine being the 25th of them.”
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Powering Jon's DTC street racer is an RB252 long-stroked motor, which has previously been used in three different scooters by him. For an in-depth overview of the various components fitted, see the accompanying Scooter Specifications. It's also the power output that's directly responsible for the name bestowed by Jon on his DTC, Schizophrenic Psycho. Though when it came to fitting it in his DTC frame, it wasn't without a few issues. “The engine was tuned by Chris Sturgess to Darrell Taylor's tuning spec, which took a while. It ran really sweet, nice when slow, and then when the pipe kicks in, it's mental, it pulls and pulls. That's where I got the name Schizophrenic Psycho from, because that's what it is. I stripped it down to have the casings powder-coated, after putting it back together it wasn't running right, getting it set up was a bit of a nightmare, got there, eventually. Obviously, with the long-stroke crank, the base of the barrel needed a 10mm packing plate at the casing mouth, as well as the Avanti cylinder head. It gives me a clearance of only two or three millimetres, it's a tight fit!”
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Excepting both the unavoidable delay with the paintwork, as well as the unscheduled hold-up with getting the engine set up, Jon carried out the majority of the work on his project himself. Needless to say, there were more than a few annoying niggles that manifested themselves during the build process. Jon shares a couple that he eventually overcame, plus one that is currently at a work-in-progress stage of being dealt with. “The front disc brake was a bit of a pig, I stripped it apart to have it powder-coated black, the hub is an original GP200 Brevettato Campagnolo – I think that's how you say or pronounce it? – converted to take a PX disc, the wavy type of disc. The pegs had come loose which had to be sorted out, it took a bit of cutting to get it properly set back up as a hydraulic disc brake. I tried lots of different seats on it, none were right for how I wanted, I was looking for an Andy Nixon seat that was cut and tapered, it proved nearly impossible to find the one I've got, I'm told it's one of the last ones like it that was made, I eventually found the one that's now on my DTC on eBay. During the build, I changed the shock springs until I got it to handle nice. A slight issue I'm in the process of sorting is with the rear shock, it has 300mm centres, and the engine is a tight fit in the frame with hardly any clearance. There's a very slight rub on the paint on the right-hand panel, where it catches at times.
I'm looking to rework the shock to 310mm centres, which should cure that. Once that's taken care of, the DTC I always wanted, in bright metal flake candy colours, will be finally finished. It took me a while, as I really went to town on the project, all that's left to add after sorting out the shock, is getting some miles notched up on the clock. It's taken me years to do, why rush to create a masterpiece? I'm now almost ready for my next one.”