In the past 6 months I have been looking for a Vespa, looking all over the place really, I live in Newcastle in the UK, there are some scooter dealers around us and I have checked most of them out. Most have good standard bikes in and the prices reflect that. There lies the problem though, STANDARD..!! now don't get me wrong, I like the look of the PX125 but it just lacks a bit of character, and if you want to go something vintage then say bye bye to around 4 grand..!!

 

So then, cyberspace beckons..!! a friend of mine told me about imported machines that could be had for a fraction of the price of the UK models and that appealed to me greatly, I have a budget of around £2.5k, and wanted a scooter and some customization for that too. I began by the normal route of the bargain hunter..ebay..!!

Now the purists will be rolling their eyes etc but I have experience of importing heavy equipment from the US, so I know if you are careful and know what you are looking for then a bargain is out there to be had.

Straight away the brightly coloured very shiny Vespas from Vietnam popped up at unbelievable prices, and straight away you think, ok where's the catch. So a google search was the next stop, and quite frankly if you weren't put off by the silly cheap ebay prices, you would be by the horror stories about the dreaded VIET BODGE in the results returned by google.

 

I searched most of the online scooter forums and sites giving reviews on imported scooters, all saying the same thing, STAY AWAY from Vietnamese scooters, and you start to think "a fool and his money etc etc ..!!"

 

But something inside of me told me that surely all of the stuff coming out of the Far East can't be that bad, after all, I would guess 75 -80% of the consumer goods in our homes are made out there, and what you are buying has been essentially made in Italy, yeah albeit 40years ago. After a little more research I came across ScootRS, same pretty web site as the rest of the Vietnamese guys, same shiny scooters, same colours and double seats etc, but something was a little different about these guys.

 

I hadn't really read one bad report about them, in fact really good reports about them (see links page), yeah some of the out and out scooter snobs (if there is such a thing) would just slag off anything that wasn't restored by xyz of Essex, but these guys seemed to be addressing the problem of the reputation from others and making quality items.

 

So as of the 16/05/08 I have decided to stake my money in ScootRS, I want a vintage Vespa, customized to my liking, yeah shiny paint and lots of chrome, good engine and trying to keep to around £2 - £2.5k and I'm sorry guys but I just can't find anyone in the UK who can do it,for that price. I will be placing my order in the next two weeks, and hopefully, if ScootRS agree and as they state, have nothing to hide, will try and document the build here. It will be an interesting learning curve, let's just hope its not a costly one.