Scooter & Three Wheeler (STW)
A magazine of its time.
Old periodicals are very much children of their time and, as such, can come across as quite quaint, but (at the same time) illuminating to the modern reader. In this respect, time-worn scooter magazines are no exception. Scooter and Three Wheeler (STW) was an early example of a special interest magazine catering for the scooter enthusiast.
Here we recount a brief history of this niche magazine…
EARLY DAYS (FROM 1956)
The first issue of STW was published in May 1956 and it was noted on its front cover which incorporated an even older magazine – The Motor Scooter – now sadly lost to history. STW was sold initially at the grand old price of 9d (just under 4p), rising to 1/6d (7.5p) at the time of its demise; it was designed as a monthly magazine in an approximate A5 format and with an average 100-page count. It was published (as was almost all printed material of the day) just off Fleet Street, the home of the British daily papers. By today’s standards, STW was cheaply produced on paper only slightly better quality than the newspaper print of the day, although the cover was of slightly superior paper allowing for better reproduction and some colour printing possibilities (in the early days, in the form of green headers and footers on the covers with some green reproduction utilised on the advertising material featured on the back cover). It should be mentioned, and following in the tradition of other similar special interest magazines of the day, such as Motor Cycling, these front covers often featured what was obviously an advertisement for a particular dealer or a manufacturer (there were many to choose from) of the day.
The earliest copy we have to hand is the second edition and features on the cover the unmistakable figure of the Grand Prix racing car ace, Stirling Moss, sitting on a Vespa. He was, as many might be aware, a lifelong (if unlikely) Vespa scooter fan and rider.
The editorial of this second edition is written in a folksy Pathé Pictorial type style: “Nice having you with us for the second time. Getting to be good friends, aren’t we? Well that’s the way we want it at ‘Scooter and
Three Wheeler’.” The editorial went on to say that the small ads had out of necessity been faked in the first edition and that one of these false advertisements had resulted in a dealer offering to purchase the mythical machine, but the journalist who placed the ‘ad’ managed to point out the snags surrounding the reliability of the scooter over the phone and talked the would-be purchaser out of the deal. It was reported that there were 46 telephone calls from eager would-be buyers in total – such was the power of advertising in STW! This second edition also noted an all-expenses-paid junket for 500 invited guests to the Pontedera factory for the occasion of the 1,000,000th Vespa off the production line, to give some historical perspective to that issue.
Interestingly, this early magazine’s reach (as far as advertising was concerned) did not go much beyond the Home Counties with a dealer in Woking being an outlet in this
respect; but within a year, this deficiency had been overcome and distant Stoke-on-Trent and Yorkshire got a shout.
LATER DAYS (1958-1963)
From May 1958, the green-coloured covers mentioned gave way to a multi-coloured type up to April 1963 when the magazine reverted to a black-and-white printed cover with a yellow header and footer.
One of the notable dealers regularly featured at this stage was André Baldet’s MotoVespa dealership from Northampton and his various publicity stunts to raise his company’s profile. He also advertised frequently, often with full-page layouts extolling his Arc en Ciel Dealer Specials
– first of the many copycat paint specials from other dealers – but the images are somewhat wasted in the monochrome reproduction available.
The final issue of STW was to be October 1967, giving a grand total print run of 127 monthly issues plus two year books in the 11-year production run. The final editorial stated that: “For some time now, it has ceased to be an economic proposition to run STW to meet the high standards set for magazines in Link House Group.” The editorial offices and publishers had, by this stage, moved away from Fleet Street to Croydon.
OVERVIEW
Apart from the inclusion of the three-wheeler aspect, the magazine’s coverage was much as we expect from browsing in modern print media on the title subject, but made truly fascinating due to its historical perspective. Articles on home maintenance with a heavy dose of do-it-yourself manufacturing of simple parts and accessories were the order of the day, underlining the financially straitened times of these publications. The sometime carping letters pages including the statements of the glaringly obvious are quite amusing to the modern reader, but – perhaps – the most interesting items from the historical perspective are the adverts that often concern long-lost manufacturers, dealers and longforgotten scooter models.
All these factors make for further appealing reading matter alongside the visual stimulation of the accompanying artwork displayed within the pages of these literary time capsules should copies of STW be available to be read by the scooter enthusiast.
Thanks to Kevin Johansen for providing additional images