Spiralling out of control!
Once again, the price of classic scooters is going up – and this time at an alarming rate. Where will it end?
In 2017 I wrote a piece in my column titled ‘How much?', commenting on the price of classic scooters and how the price of them had gone up in recent years. It was mainly aimed at the Lambretta which had seen a huge increase, certainly regarding the rarer models, and questioned whether prices would remain that high. Well, four years later, it seems nothing is stopping the increases and, if anything, they are now verging on the levels of insanity.
What the driving force behind it all is anyone's guess, but there are some clear signals as to why this is happening. There is no need to expand on the situation the world has found itself in since the beginning of 2020, and with people's jobs at risk, it has caused some owners to sell their pride and joy. Sad though the circumstances are, if anything it would have seemed likely that prices would drop. We must remember many rare scooter models are now in the hands of private collectors, with them only coming on to the market every now and then. Suddenly, because of external circumstances, a greater amount than normal has appeared for sale due to the reasons stated.
Any market which has a sudden influx is usually met with a price drop; however, it seems that totally the opposite has happened. Selling something which means a lot to you because of external influences is never an easy thing to do; also, why should you ‘give it away' for the sake of it? As scooters began to come up for sale during last summer many offered were the rarer models and at big prices. That's fair enough as the funds were needed to alleviate the pressure of not being able to work, but this is where the problems seemed to start.
For example, an SX200 fetched a price that was higher than ever seen before, which then set the benchmark for anyone wishing to do the same. Suddenly several were turning up for sale, not because the funds were needed but the temptation to cash in was too good to turn down. Watching the situation closely it became apparent some of the machines on sale were not that good when it came to the quality of the restoration, but that didn't seem to matter, as the prices were set high and anyone who wasn't fully clued up what to look out for was oblivious to the fact.
As usual, comments on social media soon pointed out the poor quality of some of the restorations on offer. What is also noticeable is that it wasn't just genuine scooter enthusiasts selling them but many car or motorcycle dealerships putting them up for sale with such descriptions as ‘rare classic'. Fair enough, you might say, but the same has been happening with models such as the Li150. Not that there is anything wrong with the Li150, far from it, but with more than 400,000 made between the three series combined… rare they are not, certainly compared with the TV200 with only 14,000 of those ever produced.
Some of the more common machines which only a couple of years ago were in the £3000 price range are now more than double that, a huge increase, and it hasn't stopped there, with frames and rare parts following the same pattern. Quite often parts collected for projects that have never been done are offered for sky-high prices because now's the time to cash in. In a way, you can't blame people for doing so as money always talks but now more than ever the Lambretta is being totally priced out of people's reach. As for the Vespa, there are similar cases; models like the GS and Rally have seen increases, and other models may just go the same way.
There is huge criticism in some ranks that this is damaging the scene to a certain extent. While it is infuriating if you want to buy a scooter that just a year ago was significantly cheaper, if someone really wants it then they will find the money. Don't forget the balance can tip the other way and if the inflated prices don't get paid then, inevitably, they will come down. Certainly, the Lambretta market has always found a way of levelling itself out when the prices get too hot and hopefully that will happen as life gets back to some sort of normality. If you are wishing to buy at the moment, then don't rush out and get the first thing you see as there are, it seems, plenty available and the right one will turn up.
No one knows what the scooter market will pan out like in the future and, hopefully, things will calm down a little. If they don't, then prices will push the average person out of the equation when it comes to owning one and I'm sure no one wants to see that. Long gone are the days of buying one out of someone's garden shed for a tenner, we can all agree on that, but it shouldn't become an elite ‘rich man's game' either.
With 50 years having passed since the last Italian Lambretta was produced, no one could have ever imagined how much they would fetch now – so hopefully common sense will prevail without prices continuing to spiral out of control.