Lambretta: An eBay Buyer’s Guide – Artist’s book that alludes to Art & Language while utilising ‘useless information’
King has a lifelong love of Lambretta scooters; though he hasn’t owned one since 2010. This book makes use of the knowledge that King has gained, while attempting to justify the amount of time he spends trawling eBay, assessing the merits of scooters that he will never buy. This book could also be read as a unique take on the inherently self-indulgent nature of the ‘artist’s book’ as a form.
LAMBRETTA GP CUTDOWN
STARTING BID: £2,400 / LOCATION: DROITWICH / EBAY ITEM NUMBER: 123545870694
SELLER SAYS:
for sale lambretta gp cutdown. registered as a 200 but has small block engine with 175 kit. new crank, all new seals and bearings. 12 volt e/I all new electrics, loom, lights switches,etc. new cables, extended forks. everything shot blasted and powder coated black, red, silver chrome. mot 03/07/19. cash on collection.
SCOTT SAYS:
Here is a scooter that is screaming out for attention, but in all the wrong ways. Although the trend for ‘cutdown’ scooters (or ‘skellys’ if all the panel work is removed) dates way back to the 1960s, the ‘classic scooterboy’ version emerged in the early 1980s, in the North of England. Making a skelly involves: removing all the panel work, cutting off the brackets that secured the panel work to the tubular part of the frame and - most notoriously of all - cutting off the tail section of the frame itself. Armed only with a hand-grinder anyone could - and did - do all this in a matter of hours. Consequently, much to the horror of today’s scooterists, many classic Lambrettas were ‘lost forever’. So, although the skelly was seen as the height of macho-hardcore scootering cool right through the 1980s, these scooters are now largely frowned upon by the ‘village green preservation society’ of mature scooterists. I suspect that today’s skelly and cutdown owners also come in for quite a lot of ‘murderer!’ type comments and are constantly having to defend themselves with words to the effect of ‘It was like this when I bought it!’. The simple rule of thumb for a (1980s-style) cutdown Lambretta is that it should be: aggressively loud, aggressively fast and aggressively painted. That is the whole point, it is meant to be a monster! This machine, fitted with its Li Series 1 ‘saddle’, its horizontal spare wheel carrier, and its ‘small block’ engine, is everything a cutdown should not be. It is an abomination of style, some kind of hideous hybrid between 1950s and 1980s styling, landing firmly in neither camp. It is simply a mess. Incredibly the owner has put in a starting bid of £2,400 – they’ll be very lucky to get £1,500 for it. Think about the machine’s potential: Does it have a full frame that you can re-paint as you wish? NO. Does it have a 200cc engine that you can tune? NO. It has what is known as a ‘small block’ engine (125-175cc as standard). If you were to buy this scooter it would only ever ‘be what it is’ - a cutdown, small block, Indian GP. Of course you can change the seat and lose the spare wheel carrier, you can repaint it - you can even add a 186cc kit etc. - but by the time you have done all this you will have spent at least £3,000, bringing your total spend to (at least) £5,400. And for what?
VERDICT:
Avoid at all costs. Aside from the fact that you will constantly be repeating ‘It was like this when I bought it!’ to ageing skinheads, this machine is never going to be desirable. It is not a classic scooter that was ‘murdered’, it is simply an Indian GP150 that someone has made worse.
LAMBRETTA J125
STARTING BID: £1,800 / LOCATION: LYMINGTON / EBAY ITEM NUMBER: 202531616224
SELLER SAYS:
Hi for sale is my 1965 Lambretta J125 3 speed. It is unrestored and very original it has age related marks and a small bit of damage. It is to good to restore I’m my opinion. It runs and would be an easy winter project with a light sympathetic restoration. It comes with a date certificate and some other paperwork. Please message for any other information. Cash on collection and pick up only
SCOTT SAYS:
Now, this model is very personal to me. I still cannot see one without wincing inside. The Lambretta J125 was the first scooter I ever owned. In 1984, when I was 14, and desperate to own a Lambretta (despite the fact that I would not be able to ride it on the road until late 1986), I pestered my dad to buy me one. He was very against it, maintaining that scooters are ‘hair-dryers’ and ‘real men ride motorbikes’. In the end, though, he gave in. After several aborted attempts to buy various Li Series 3 machines in all sorts of states of deadly repair, I eventually saw an advert for a J125, in the Goole Post Office window. It was priced at £155 - a considerable sum back then, even for a decent and desirable Lambretta. Being 14, I had no idea that there were so many models of Lambretta, I just thought a Lambretta was a Lambretta and therefore fantastic. My dad - bored by the visits to surrounding villages and towns looking at rusty heaps of scrap, after he finished work - simply said I could have this one. It was a huge error. Other, older scooterists laughed at me when I boasted about what I’d just bought - some even came round to have a look, but only so they could mock. Undeterred, I decided to paint my new scooter, Ford Azure Blue, using a ‘professional’ spray gun borrowed from a local farmer. The results were shocking - showing no aptitude for paint spraying, impatience and lack of care to detail, when I’d finished it looked like it had been vandalised by an imbecilic graffiti artist. Acknowledging the mess I’d made, I painted ‘Disillusion’ in large black letters across both side panels. Like any J125, with its upright barrel and weak engine, it would never even hit 45mph, the brakes were deadly and its seat - enormous and bulbous - looked like a discarded leatherette sofa. I eventually - and incredibly - sold the scooter for £150. So, although I’d suffered humiliation, and by ‘customising’ the scooter made it even worse, in the end I only lost £5 - which was a miracle.
VERDICT:
Never, ever buy one of these scooters. They are by far the worst model of Lambretta ever made. They were considered a total failure at the time - their lightweight pressed steel frame being specifically aimed at ‘the female market’ (strange: the normal tubular ‘scaffolding’ frame of a Lambretta does make them heavy, but scooters had always been marketed as ‘unisex’ vehicles). I can honestly say that even if this seller offered to bring this machine round to my house, for free, and then give it to me as a gift, I would still tell him to ‘fuck off’.
Lambretta: An eBay Buyer’s Guide, published by Compagnia, 2019
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