Lock, Stock and One Smoking Barrel
Ihave a confession to make. In the thick end of 40 years that I’ve been playing with scooters, despite my best intentions, I have never finished any project that I’ve started. My garage currently houses a three-quarters-finished P200, a Cosa that needs putting back on the road, my furlough cutdown project, and we won’t discuss the T5 Classic that I bought eight years ago, took to pieces and... well, let’s just say that I’m sick of falling over the box of engine bits that keep trying to guilt trip me.
Paul Coleman, on the other hand, is somewhat more on point. A couple of years ago a mate took him down to the Sid James’ weekender. A rally virgin at this point, he was immediately taken in by the friendliness of the atmosphere, but it was the work that people had had done on their scooters, particularly in the airbrushing department, that blew him away. As an amateur spraygun artist himself, he was smitten, and wanted something similar too. A good example of a Mk1 PX150 was sourced as the base machine for the project, and he decided to do as much of the work as he could manage, with his mate Jeff Graves – an experienced scooterist and fettler – getting stuck in and helping along with the scooter dismantling.
The theme was straightforward. The somewhat dark 1998 British comedy Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels was one that launched the careers of many now household names. It didn’t take a lot of thinking about before Paul decided that this was going to supply the images that would adorn the scooter, along with a subtle play on the film’s title for the scooter’s name. Paul was determined that he would do as much of the work on the scooter as he could, although luckily Jeff helped him do it properly, as he’d much
more experience around scooters.
Once they’d carefully stripped the scooter down, Paul took it along to a business run by a couple of friends – Carl and Dan at the surprisingly named C&D Alloys – who allowed him to apply the base coat in their spray booth. Although a keen amateur himself, he decided to leave the important bit to a professional, and as such his next port of call was at Hangar 10 Airbrush Studio in Maidstone. Airbrush wielder Andy applied the murals over the base coat that Paul had applied. Before accepting the commission, he had understandably specified that he wouldn’t work on anything less than a perfect base coat. I think we can take it that he had managed this up at C&D. Somehow, the artist has managed to capture both the humour and menace that the film portrays in his images, whether it’s Vinnie Jones’ Big Chris giving it the “don’t mess with me, Sunshine” stare on the left-hand panel, Barry The Baptist (Lenny Mclean) making his point on the opposite side or Victor McGuire’s Gary and his smouldering hair up front, they all capture the likeness of the actor and the role they are playing. Not constrained by frames, the images flow almost organically through the lines of the scooter, the monochrome colour scheme adding to the impact of the pictures in a way that could have been diluted by too gaudy a paint scheme.
A pretty quick turnaround saw the scooter back in Gary’s possession and ready for the scary part… the rebuild. Fortunately, Jeff was to hand with his knowledge and experience, and the build went as smoothly as you could hope, with no major complications along the way. Gary had already made the decision to keep the scooter simple to highlight the paint, so there was no need to overhaul or tune the engine, the 150 lump proving enough for posing around the area. Chroming was kept to a minimum with wheel trims, selector box cover, indicators and grips all being off-the-shelf bling that adds a tiny bit of sparkle which doesn’t distract from the detail of the paint. He’s also happy with the Vespa as it is now, isn’t planning any changes to the work and considers the scooter completed.
So how long to build this rather tasty scooter? Four months from start to finish.
That’s pretty good going by anyone’s standards. I think I really should get cracking on mine.
Words: Nik