Take me to your dealer…
Scooter dealers… love them or loathe them, we will give them anything, from this week's wages to our life's savings… just to build us the ‘mega scooterscooter' we always wanted.
Iwas looking through some old magazines a couple of weeks ago and there were names that are long gone but still fondly remembered. In my early days of playing scooters, I remember phoning up Rafferty Newman and getting details to send a cheque in the post. I even remember sending a letter to them as well explaining a problem with Zener diodes blowing… ah yes, the heady days of Indian Lambretta electrical systems! It’s easy to forget just how simple it now is, to look up a website on your phone while you’re sat (outside) a cafe and to order a selection of scooter parts and accessories on your phone, let Google Pay sort things out with your credit card and voilà, maybe even tomorrow those parts arrive at your door!
Our beloved scooter dealers fall into a few camps, I think. There is the ‘pile the bits high and sell stuff (and tat) by web sales from a warehouse’ type. Often a mixed bag, you will likely get some good parts, though some parts will likely be somewhat lacking in quality. Then we have dealers who started off small, from fixing scooters for mates and have gradually grown into fully fledged dealers who can sell parts and fix your scooter too. They likely started in a shed or garage and the business just grew when they did a good job; these guys often have a strong local following due to their good reputation. Then there are some dealers who invest a small fortune in premises and large amounts of physical stock. Some are also regular rally and show attendees with their mobile stores packed up in scores of plastic boxes, doing the rounds of events and parts fairs each year. But the ones who have extracted the most money from me (in the nicest possible way) over the years are the race-based tuner/dealers. I remember visiting the legendary Midland Scooter Centre, in a Long Eaton back street tiny shop with well-fortified doors and windows. That business has now evolved into a huge modern dealership and massive premises, a resounding success story of our industry. In those early days Dave Webster would cheekily appear from behind the counter in his overalls and give me the latest reason for the next delay on my Autisa barrel… just before selling me an old stock Honda master cylinder that he was ‘glad to get rid of’ yet still charged me handsomely for the privilege. Those were definitely the days!
The dealers who actually raced scooters were the ones I was always drawn to – names such as MSC, Kegra, Rayspeed, Chiselspeed, JB, Jahspeed, VE, Readspeed and Replay, to name just a few, have all served me very well over the years of racing and breaking things. The racers who really knew their stuff and who approached being a scooter dealer from an engineering perspective are always the ones who really know what is involved in making your scooter faster. They have a knack sometimes of protecting you from yourself if you go in and want to buy some weird set-up or have your scooter tuned to deliver some crazy peak power in a very fast but short-lived way. These guys are useful to know. They have probably broken more engines than you’ll ever own and have often learnt the hard way how to develop our shopping machine engines.
Then of course there are the dealers who come and who go, just interested in a fast buck and not really part of this true scooter world… there have been plenty of those! They have bought a load of gear and tat to sell at the Isle of Wight, to all those unsuspecting scooterists with cash burning holes in their pockets. I’m sure you have seen it happen… rallygoers walking through the stalls clutching lots of shiny chrome bits and any garment you can think of with a silhouette of a Vespa or the word Lambretta printed on it. You may have even bought something yourself, maybe?
Although we have left Europe now some of our favourite dealers are there too, and they are doing some amazing work in developing things to not only keep scooters on the road but to massively develop them. It’s a bit more hassle getting our parts fix from them and somehow, we now have more handling charges and shipping to buy from our Euro friends, but we still want (and need) their stuff.
But if you are into taking your scooter apart, you will likely delight in going to see the dealers with the grubby hands. To see them being stripped and built in the kind of workshop you’d love to own, all the tools for all the jobs which need to be done. The engineering-based dealers may also have the odd lathe tucked away, or a myriad of welders (machines, not men). Our scooters are getting ever more technical, and tubeless tyres mean we now also often need a dealer to remove and fit those too. So, whatever your preferred type of dealer… in these times we need to support them as much as we can. We are them, and they are us… scooterists. We keep them in business, and they keep us on the road… it’s a time-served synergy that I wouldn’t ever want to do without. You’ll find them in these pages, and there’s something for everyone; give them your support as you start heading back out to stuff this summer (fingers crossed).