Ducati Brio scooter
Gary Edgar is not your average Ducatisti. Eschewing the more fancied models, he has adopted such runts of the Ducati litter as a 160cc Monza Junior, and came perilously close to taking on the unspeakable GTL500 parallel twin. So why not a Ducati scooter – specifically, a Ducati Brio? Let’s let Gary tell the story…
Small numbers were exported and around 60 in total reached our shores, so there was a very faint hope. After being hit with scammers responding to my website listings I did come across an original 1964 model 48cc Brio. The price wasn’t ruinous, the engine was claimed to have compression, it seemed in fair overall condition with only minimal rust that could be dealt with and most importantly it was all there. There was just one small hitch. The Brio was in Manduria in the south of Italy between Taranto and Brindisi and not too far from Napoli. It was not mission impossible, just mission bloody difficult, because while shipping bikes from the US or UK is not uncommon, getting one out of Italy wasn’t routine. I found a transport company that could manage it out of Napoli to Brisbane, but by the time I paid for the Brio, crating-up, fumigation, shipping and assorted customs fees, I was beginning to stare down the barrel of something like 5 – 6 grand before I’d spent a cent on restoration. Sadly it just didn’t seem economically viable, so I let it drop. But a little while later a small miracle happened in the shape of a quite large Sicilian by the name of Giuseppe. He was opening a new restaurant a couple of doors down from my favourite morning coffee haunt and each day seeing me in my riding gear he’d greet me with “buon giorno signore Ducati”. One morning we got talking and it turned out he’d been a Ducati dealer back in Catania and said if there was anything he could ever do to help me to say so. I had no expectations of help when I related the tale of woe about the Brio, but he burst forth with “we must bring the little scooter here… it is rare and it must come here so people can admire it…all the time I bring containers of tomatoes from Napoli and Genoa…this is no problem…we load the little Brio in one of my containers …for this I want no money because your passion is my passion…we must do these things from the heart”. Suddenly about 3 grand in costs was wiped off the venture and it all became possible, so between my bad Italian emails and Giuseppe’s phone calls to the vendor, negotiations began in earnest. As the next step, Giuseppe was heading to Italy on business, so he’d take my money, meet up with the vendor in Napoli, hand over the cash, take delivery of the Brio and make the arrangements with his shipping company to load the Brio with the next container of canned tomatoes. A few weeks later my friend returned still clutching my money.
“Some little problems”. It emerged that Italian Customs would not permit cash transactions as there needed to be a traceable money trail from the purchaser. No problem. All I needed to do was transfer 970 euro to the vendor’s bank account. The money was duly transferred and I requested a receipt faxed or emailed immediately so I could apply to the lovely people in Canberra for my Vehicle Import Approval. Next it was determined that the Brio would need to be crated and shrouded in plastic and this gave rise to further consultations and negotiations. However in the fullness of time I received notification that the good ship “Cosco Shanghai” bearing the Brio had set sail from Napoli on 4 July 2010 and after a change of ships in Hong Kong, Giuseppe’s tomatoes and my Brio would arrive in Brisbane aboard the “Cosco Fukuyama” on 18 August 2010. Thus it was that on Thursday 26 August 2010, there in the cavernous warehouse of the customs agent and dwarfed by towering pallets of tomatoes, rice and bottled water, sat the little Brio intact in its slatted crate. The Quarantine boys gave her the once over, issued a clean bill of health and the Brio was promptly set free and loaded into my van, its 9-month odyssey finally over. If the long saga of getting the baby Ducati from Italy to Australia taught me anything it taught me infinite patience. The Brio is a pretty basic bit of kit, so the dismantling thereof produced no challenges even for my exceedingly modest skills. Each and every component was tagged and bagged in Ziplocks and the bags tagged and consigned to containers by grouping. The first bit of restoration happened rapidly due to the enthusiasm of Peter Herrington at Meerkat Mufflers. Although the muffler, header pipe and stinger looked OK, the muffler had been heavily interfered with in the enthusiastic Italian manner but he got cracking, opened the muffler up, cleaned and re-jigged the molested innards, blasted and gave all the components a coat of heat-proof exhaust paint in “cast-iron” finish. Marvellous. The engine had compression, turned over freely and was complete right down to the carby and the original pink Magneti Marelli plug still in the head, so after cleaning a few oil-impregnated hectares of Southern Italy off it, the engine was bundled into the boot of the Alfa and driven south to be submitted to the tender mercies of Phil Hitchcock at Road & Race. In the meantime the bodywork had been worked over by Simon Tate and his team at Simca Specialist Motorcycle Repairers. The Brio had been produced in a fairly uninspiring monotone, but I decided to reproduce the deep blue and grey of the marvellous though ill-fated Ducati Cruiser scooter from the Fifties. As a 48cc “moped” in the Italy of its era there was no requirement for registration, thus the Brio had no provision for carrying a number plate, number plate light or rego holder. To address this and to add a touch of practical “bling”, a replica of the original parcel rack (a Brio optional accessory) was made and chromed. This has incorporated a plate for mounting the number plate and a tiny LED plate light. The shock absorbers were shot, so these have been shelved and replaced with a set of YSS Racing scooter shocks...about as close to anything connected with racing that the lusty 48cc Brio is likely to get. All but two of the original anti-scuff floor strips were still there but these were a dull and weathered cream plastic. A full set of new alloy ones with rubber inserts and neat end caps as used on the small Vespa of that period was sourced from Scooters Originali in the US and easily adapted to the Brio. The tyres still held air though they had begun to crack up, so the hunt was on. The size is slightly oddball and I was having no luck until my Sicilian mate Giuseppe once more came to my rescue. He still maintains his motorcycle shop in Catania and on a return visit he checked and found he had my size tyres and said on his next trip to Sicily he would pack up some tyres and tubes and have them on standby to go in another of his containers. As the spring gave way to summer and the autumn leaves began to fall and the plane hadn’t yet left the tarmac, I decided to try one last avenue. Sure enough VL Service in Terracina had the tyres and tubes and the price for a set was a mere 60 euro plus 30 euro freight. I ordered a set on the spot. My rationale was that whichever lot arrived first would go on the Brio and the next lot would be tucked away as spares. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Within 24 hours VL had come back with a sense of Italian despair that they had to stop my order because their courier service had upped the ante to 130 euro and they couldn’t charge me that much. I had to agree that it made no economic
The Brio had been produced in a fairly uninspiring monotone, but I decided to reproduce the deep blue and grey of the marvellous though ill-fated Ducati Cruiser scooter from the Fifties.
sense (as if any part of this project did) and so it was surrender to the tender mercies of Giuseppe’s supply processes – which in any case would see the tyres arrive in “one more week”. Phil of Road & Race fame finally came good with the motor after only a year and as there wasn’t anything diabolically amiss within the bowels of the mighty 48cc 2 stroke, there was a mercifully reasonable bill. Now the engine is in, as is the swing arm, fuel tank, steering column, seat, new shockies, kick-starter, new cables and HT coil. The header pipe and expansion chamber have to wait until the wheels are on as the system hangs below the swing arm, so the baby has to be up on its feet to allow me to mount the blowing-out bits...and we know now why the wheels aren’t on don’t we? Gear oil has been added, a splash of 2 stroke oil tipped into the plug hole and the engine gently turned over by hand every now and then to keep everything free and sweet.
I reactivated the order with VL Service in Terracina who had been prepared to send me a set of tyres until it was aborted in the face of a 130 euro shipping charge. Now they were out of stock, but would “advise me” when the stock was back in. I asked them to get me a quote to send the tyres by Italian Post, as it would have to be cheaper than the larcenous courier. In the fullness of Italian time I was informed that the cost would be 40 euro and that the tyres had arrived in stock. I placed the order, received an invoice and paid the total stated. A few days later I was given the news that the post cost had matured like a good Tuscan red and was now 65 euro. I paid up. At least one set of tyres was coming my way. About a week after placing the order with VL Service, an Aussie Post courier arrived on the doorstep clutching the elusive tyres. I photographed them for posterity, then over a glass of Sicilian red, the package was ceremoniously opened to reveal two fresh Michelins (made in Serbia) and the accompanying tubes. A quick fit-up and “Baby has new shoes!” Thus time slipped by until we arrived at the blessed moment when the engine was back and in, the wheels were on and the little beast was mostly reassembled. It was a giddy moment when I “paddled” the Brio up and down our driveway, summoning up tender childhood memories of my first little two-wheeler. It gave rise to a (premature) sense of expectation that come Christmas, I might well be puttering to my favourite cafe in stately fashion on a Sunday morning aboard the gleaming Brio. Anyhow, along the way another of those rare “giddy moments” arose when the Brio was coaxed into life for the first time in what was probably decades. A bit of judicious fiddling here and there with fuel and a somewhat idiosyncratic (in other words typically Italian) choke procedure and the littlest Ducati obligingly farted into life, emitting that iconic 2-stroke “put-put-put” and thumbing its nose at environmental correctness by belching a respectable cloud of blue smoke. Twisting the throttle brought the mighty 48cc powerplant into full song and to my ears it was as satisfying as if you’d just opened the taps on a Panigale 1199.
It’s been an improbable four years since I sent a fistful of euro to Manduria in the south of Italy to buy the Brio but finally, yes, finally the littlest Ducati is done and dusted, registered for the road and home to stay at long last. The process of saving the baby from an ignominious end in some Italian landfill is a bit like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer...it’s great when you stop. By any rational view it has been an exercise of utter lunacy, frustration and financial folly that has tipped buckets of bucks into reviving a Ducati beyond what might dubiously be termed “its former glory”. This is a little machine for which Mick Walker in his Ducati Buyer’s Guide offers the jaundiced advice: “One word: don’t! These were unwanted then and equally so today, so stay well clear.” I learnt that for some people time is not of the essence and I estimate that across the duration of the project around 18 months or more was time wasted, simply because people procrastinated and didn’t get on with the job, fed me nonsense or were simply out of their depth. I also found great people like Peter at Meerkat Mufflers and Cam and Phil at Ellaspede who tackled their bits with enthusiasm, efficiency and passion. And I encountered others like Simon and his crew at Simca, who were meticulous in their restoration and painting of the bodywork, or my friend Gino in Ferrara, who supplied photos of his restored Brio and backed that with technical advice when I was stuck. The initial purchase price converted to $1500 in our money, but “fees and charges creep” from Italian and Australian agencies and bureaucracies doubled that by the time it landed here. The actual work in total totted up to 8 grand and of that I again calculate that money spent on re-doing stuff not done properly first up, or in a couple of cases, through a bit of suspiciously high charging, probably accounted for around a needless $1500. So add it all up, take a deep breath and yes, you are staring down the barrel of 11 grand. But for me, this sort of thing can never be about making money. It can only be about passion and a desire to save from oblivion something of the past and especially to reclaim something that although unloved by many, deserves better than an ignominious end rotting away in a shed. It’s about a whole different mindset not related to rationality or economics. As my Italian friends say (they understand implicitly): “this is a thing we must do from the heart”.