A rising star in the making?
Is fame and stardom waiting in the wings for this particular Vespa VBB?
At first glance, this Vespa VBB may look like many other scooters of its time period. But destiny can be a funny thing and whatever life this particular scooter led in the past was destined to be overshadowed by its appearance on the silver screen.
But how and why? Our story begins in the spring/early summer of 2019 when scooterist Sean Tickner was approached by Fins Motorcycles in Redhill (the company doesn't specialise in work on classic scooters and refers any work that needs to be done on to him). The motorcycle company had been approached by another firm, Dream Cars, which had been commissioned to supply classic scooters for an up-and-coming film (at that stage, the name of the actual film they were required for wasn't known).
So Sean duly rang Dave at Dream Cars who explained they had acquired a few classic scooters they need building up for a film company that they were supplying a range of vehicles for – and would Sean be interested in doing the work on the scooters they had bought in? At this stage, Sean had no idea what scooters they'd bought and, wondering what he was letting himself in for, he agreed to do it.
‘BETTA GET A VESPA’
A van duly arrived at Sean's place and he found himself looking at an old silver Vespa VBB; the remit he'd been given was to strip and rebuild it, as everything on it was falling apart; it didn't need to be roadworthy as it was intended for film use only.
After a quick look around it, Sean decided it was a solid machine at heart and although the intention was that it would just be used as a film prop, he was going to prepare it to roadgoing MoT standard (if he was going to be working on this scooter, he wanted it to look and ride like it was meant to).
He was then told the film producers wanted the scooter ‘dressed up' (fully chromed in other words) for film use – his heart sank, as he was a bit of a purist and wouldn't normally take a scooter down that particular avenue. But he agreed to do it, which led to a search for suitable period adornments.
He advised Dream Cars (who were paying for the accessories) to get in touch with Allstyles Scooters in Portsmouth, who must have thought it was a ‘bonus day' for them with the amount of stuff that was ordered.
SIBLING RIVALRY
Then, a few days later, a second scooter – another Vespa VBB – turned up at Sean's place; this one, he was told, was intended to be the scooter that was going to be used in the film stunts. Work on this scooter included taking the engine out and stripping it for a complete rebuild, including new bearings, a heavy-duty clutch, 12v ignition and all the other ancillaries like cables, etc. and visual items like whitewall tyres. The scooters were prepped for consistency, which included quick paint jobs – which, according to Sean, looked stunning. The necessary matching ‘bling' was then fitted and the chrome LED lights were wired in.
With all the work on the two scooters now complete, Sean was asked to go up to the Longcross Film Studios (and various other filming locations around London) to be on hand, if needed, for the filming of the scooter stunts. Sean recalls that the female motorcycle stunt driver who doubled for the film's then unknown main actress (later confirmed as Emma Stone) took to the scooter's gear and brake controls pretty quickly (much better than the male stunt driver). When it was explained to Sean what stunts they were trying to achieve, he thought to himself: ‘God, I hope the scooter can take it!'
SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT
Safely back at home – and yet another scooter turned up at Sean's place! But this one was a little different and needed its own special kind of fettling.
This scooter was another Vespa VBB – but the original engine had been removed by the film's special effects guy who had built and fitted his own version of an electric engine (effectively a large washing machine motor with a metal crate bolted to it!). The scooter's fuel tank had also been removed and the space void was crammed with lithium batteries; a battery charging point had been place on top.
Sean's remit was to do a ‘spanner check' to make sure everything was working okay; and with the original engine and ancillaries removed, this left the scooter with only the front brake to stop with!
Sean looked around to find the best parts he could to make the remaining brake work in the best way possible.
Once everything had been sorted, Sean (never having ridden an electric scooter before) took it for a test ride and was taken by surprise when the scooter accelerated “like a screaming bitch”, going from 0 to 70mph in an unbelievably quick time!
But why did the film company want to use an electric scooter? In the film, this scooter was to be used for burnouts and doughnuts (have you ever seen a normal ‘road-standard' Vespa loaded with ‘bling' being able to do this properly)? No, neither had Sean; and this is why the film producers wanted it.
KILL BILL
(Okay, that film title reference might be a bit of a stretch as we don't actually know the stunt riders' names).
More excitement surrounding this scooter was still to come. With all the work done, another test day was called for. At the filming location, the scooter was fully charged up and one of the stunt riders took it out for a test run. Pressing the thumb-operated throttle, he disappeared into the distance like a rocket, then realised he couldn't stop on the front brake alone – he came back looking like a ghost! He then tried to do burnouts and power slides on it, but the rear wheel bit and launched him into the nearby woods – and so it went on!
To try and resolve the stopping problem, Sean fitted a front disc brake conversion kit to help out; a disc brake was considered, but in the end he opted for a hybrid-built brake made out of bastardised PX/VBB/Lui parts. However, that still didn't cure the problem. So in the end, the burnout stunts were filmed with the front wheel chained to the floor!
SMOKE SCREEN
The film producers wanted the petrol-engined Vespas being used for the filming to produce as little engine smoke as possible, so Sean used fully synthetic oil to minimise this as much as he could; then a smoke machine was used to produce the correct amount of smoke needed to create the special effects. Sean was also worried about how the engine would hold up while stunt filming was in progress and was thinking to himself: ‘Please don't seize.'
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
Back at home again, yet another scooter turned up; this time it was a dark grey Vespa which had quite good bodywork. To build this one up to standard, Sean managed to rob from the parts that had been removed from the previously stripped-out electric scooter. So in total, Sean built four scooters for use in the film.
MEMORI AMORE
Although Sean was on hand on the film set for most of the stunt days, work commitments meant he missed a couple and the film's stand-by mechanic stepped in to cover for him. Over the filming period, the scooters behaved reasonably well (especially when you consider the treatment that they received at the hands of the stunt riders). In fact Sean reckons he spent more time working on and repairing the BSA Bantams that were also used in the filming.
Before doing the work for the film company, Sean had to sign a ‘non-disclosure agreement' (aka ‘NDA') to cover his work on the as-yet-unnamed film – and it wasn't until the official film trailers went on release in early May 2021 and he was sent a promo screen shot that he found out what the movie was going to be called – it was a Disney film remake of the classic 101 Dalmatians, but now renamed as Cruella. So it was only at this point he was released from his NDA and could finally talk about it. And because of that original NDA agreement, Sean hadn't taken many pictures of the scooters, so the ‘before' pictures accompanying this article are the only record of Sean's involvement that we have (hindsight is a wonderful thing). However, I contacted Disney Enterprises in Burbank, California, who very kindly granted
Classic Scooterist permission to use footage and promotional material from the movie to supplement this article.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
So what happens to the scooters after the filming had finished? It is believed that one or more of them might end up on the red carpet at the film's various international premieres (one of them was almost certainly shipped to America for this purpose).
On reflection, Sean would have liked to have got his hands on the scooters after the movie was finished to check them over and measure the frames to see just what damage they had suffered during filming – but this was not to be. Had Sean originally known what punishment they were to receive during filming, he would have welded some extra strengthening points on to the frames. The provenance of where the scooters originally came from is also an unanswered question (something Sean didn't have time to investigate while working on the scooters).
Although these Vespas were effectively just ‘film props', could they, in time, become sought-after collectable items for scooterists (although perhaps not as collectable as the scooters used in Quadrophenia)? Who knows, only time will tell…