Roadkill: September 2009

More Lambretta rubber trim for you! Again made as original but for a reasonable price (about half of what Casa asks for Italian repros).

We've now made Lambretta hormcast rubber for both S3 and S1-2.

We've also completed the Lambretta bridge rubber for both S3 and S1-2.

Both come in gray and black and, unlike Italian items so often, our gray rubber all matches because we do it all ourselves inhouse. More to come as well. Soon you won't have to overpay for any Italian S1-2-3 rubber.

We also finally listed a couple other items that were sitting on the shelf that we'd actually forgotten about after we made them:

• A deluxe Lambretta battery strap made in stainless steel so it will never rust with felt-lined rubber so it won't scratch anything. Very nice quality.
• After our regular clutch plates we made thin Lambretta clutch plates to go with 5-plate or 6-plate set ups. You can buy one at a time to match your needs. These are a great price too!

Enjoy!

A nice email today from Germany:

Feedback: I have now ordered a few parts from ScootRS and am extremely impressed with the excellent quality and quick delivery, actually delivered quicker than shops from my own country!

Just received inboard disc brake and stainless tuned exhaust and have fitted both to my Li S2 Lambretta. The quality, fit and price for both items was amazing!

I will be ordering further parts and would recommend ScootRS to all!

That's nice, thanks!

Just today someone was asking on a forum about the quality of our high pressure cast Lambretta inboard disc brake compared to the rough Italian sand cast ones, so let people know on forums what you found out. Insiders already know ScootRS means higher quality than Italian, along with reasonable prices, but comments like yours always help others find out the secret.

Can mixed scooter relationships - classic and twist-and-go - work, or are they based on lies and deception?

Watch this short film clip and decide...

The main advantage we have in making our items inhouse in our own factory is that we can control quality.

The big disadvantage we have is our factory is in Vietnam and lots of junk comes from the local market here. Unfortunately, people who don't know much about that but have heard of “ScootRS” incorrectly associate us with local junk. A few examples:

Twice on US forums recently people who commented on hackjob scooters from Vietnam in the US have called ones “ScootRS” bikes. One was a fake Vespa fenderlight, something we've never done. Another Lambretta had a knockoff disc brake, therefore it was assumed... Given that we only do a few a year, and you can even see them on our website and read what we do on our restored scooters (which is better quality than most scooters being resold at Western shops), luckily that doesn't happen much.

About parts: recently we've been brought local samples of custom twisted Lambretta stands but found them unsellable. They are made badly wrong: wrong brackets, wrong height, wrong angle - yet you see these at UK resellers of low-end Vietnam local market parts for around $115! Bizarre. If we sell them we'll have to completely redo them.

Unfortunately we'll still get wrongly associated with the poor ones in some cases. For example, similar problems exist with the local regular Lambretta stands. Again recently, we saw a post on a forum about an incorrect straight-up stand that someone guessed was from ScootRS when in fact it was from a major UK dealer who probably brought in the local Vietnam market items.

Here's the incorrect stand, which is what the local market Vietnam stands look like:

We used to carry these before too and fix them up so not so bad but we were never happy with them so, having our own factory, we made them inhouse ourselves the other year. Here's an actual ScootRS stand:

Two stands, both from Vietnam, but one pumped out from little shops for the local market while the other is made firsthand in our factory by our own workers and sent direct to you. (Which is why we love customer feedback and can act on it!)

Quite an obvious difference in quality, no? The same story can be repeated with 100s of other items, from little items up to poor quality “Spaq/Sterling” sand cast knockoff disc brakes that crack.

So, keep in mind as you shop for scooter parts:

1. ScootRS does NOT equal Vietnam. Most of our items are made inhouse and nothing like the local Vietnam items.
2. Don't assume Western shops equal quality. They all import parts, even Casa Lambretta buys parts in Vietnam. Some shops in the UK have far more to do with “Vietnam” that we ever will, selling all manner of local market items we never would.
3. Ask who specifically made the parts before buying and don't accept a vague answer. Most of our larger items have our name on them but a few Vietnam reseller shops in the UK and elsewhere have been caught saying items were from us while supplying poor quality local market items.
4. If you specifically want our item, ask us if we supply parts to that shop.

As suggested previously, here's a map of all the countries we've shipped to (so far):

Do they have Vespas around Africa?

Tony O'Brien, whom we sponsor in BSSO racing, sends in a note about his Green Hornet SS90:

Just got back from Germany and the English reset the Nurburgring lap record.

Charlie Edmonds 2.45 Lambretta lap record, Tony O'Brien 2.48 Vespa lap record sponsored by yourselves.

Awesome! Way to go! Check out the video and watch for the green bullet right at the beginning:

Another trilogy of scooter part emails:

Today I received my order (from far away Vietnam) in excellent condition at my home address in the Netherlands. I like to thank you for the great service, and the nice quality of the Giuliari seat badge. I am very pleased with that and appreciate it very much!! Regards from the Netherlands

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Dear ScootRS, my Vespa speedo arrived this AM, very quick service indeed, and it appears an excellent product, many thanks, I shall be ordering more parts soon. Again thanks.

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Just to let you know I received the order today and wanted to say many thanks to you for honoring your pledge to send me a seat at no extra cost to me.

Your positive response means that I will leave positive feedback on Scooter Forums about ScootRS and will continue to spend my money with you in future!

The last one was about our Covolo seat for Vespa PX, which was touching the frame on a PX (but not other types) and had to be changed a bit.

As a footnote, the last batch of orders downloaded minutes ago were, in order, from Australia, Israel, United States, Netherlands, England, Singapore, Cyprus, Italy, and Italy again. Maybe our theme song should be L'Internationale?

A trilogy of customer emails today: one from someone who got stuck with a local Vietnam scooter, another looking for good quality Vespa chrome rims, and one who got a great deal on a Lambretta TV175 carb kit:

I just received the parts that I ordered last week. I would like to say THANKS. The parts are of exceptional quality and very well packaged. This has been the first thing that has gone right ever since I bought my first two scooters from Vietnam. I hope to deal with you again soon.

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Wondering how your 8 inch chrome wheels look. Some of the scooter shops over here have pics of them on their webpages and when you see them in real life they have a dull “kitchen spoon” shine on them. Are yours as nice as they look in the pictures?

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Re: Carburetor Kit 24mm VM 150/175cc

Hi. Fantastic!!! Put it on and the beast started second kick. So much better than Jetex. As it's only a 175 it doesn't need a super carb, so this is a perfect setup. Thanks again scootRS.

We've often heard that our chrome items are much better quality than Italian chrome parts, so that would explain the difference in rims.

We actually just posted some updated photos and info about our inhouse made high quality Vespa PX/10 inch chrome wheel rims. Ours are $27 whereas Italian one are usually around $49 from most shops. The price difference is obvious, but judge for yourself which are better quality.

Check out the great collection of mod photos at Vintage Urban Village.

A nice email from our friends in Russia at the Moscow Vespa Club:

Hello!

I'm writing you from Moscow, Russia. Here we also have Vespamania, but of course much modest size than you have. I made the first order in ScootRS on July 13, 2009. By the way, I'm really happy about high quality of all items I've got, thanks for this.

[Top secret spy stuff about international payments deleted.]

...that's why all Moscow Vespa Club and I'm are asking you. We really want your stuff.

Great! Just remember, the secret code word is “Vertov”. Other than that, Добро пожаловать!

Sept. 2 is a national holiday in Vietnam, so we'll be closed for one day.