New Lambretta Vendetta
UPDATE Aug 2016 – read THIS article for an update what is inside the Lambretta Special (previously called Vendetta).
So, the first part of a familiar tease campaign begins as Lambretta Consortium begin to plug their new scooter. We began our coverage of the story with this article predicting what we might see and whadya know, we we were pretty close by the looks of it.
For a start it’s clearly an automatic scooter as you can tell by the upswept bodywork needed to clear an auto-type exhaust. This was the solution used on all the modern Vespas. The only other alternative is to make the rear body wide like that of a Scomadi. Also as predicted, in terms of overall size and shape it is not entirely unlike the previous Lambretta LN125 albeit with stronger lines as typical of something penned by Gerald Kiska.
What is really unusual is the use of what look like spoked or at least finely cast wheels front and rear. My guess is that they are 12″ diameter.
The choices of engine are interesting too: 50, 125 and 180. 50 suggests that this machine will be lightweight and probably air-cooled as predicted. 125 should be the most popular size given the current EU licencing.
The interesting capacity mentioned is 180 because that is the sort of size you can safely attain by boring and stroking a 125cc base engine. 180 is actually the same capacity as Scomadi’s TL200 which uses an engine design based on an old Aprilia/Rotax design which is available to producers in Asia, however Scomadi’s engine is water-cooled.
For the Vendetta to use a water-cooled engine it would need to have radiators, but where would they be located? In the legshields like a Vespa GTS or under the floor like a Scomadi?
Certainly there are other decent 180cc engines available in Asia from the likes of SYM who make a 4-valve with 14.5hp for their Joyride, but again this is water-cooled.
Lambretta.com have reset their countdown timer on the site for another 41 days so presumably we get the next tease then.
Sticky
Out of interest we boosted the teaser image to see if it would reveal any more and we’ve managed to glean a few more details:
- The forks look like they might be telescopic which is not really a bad thing.
- There is 99% chance that it has a hydraulic front disc brake on the right side.
- The lump shown by the rear wheel could be a rear hydraulic brake, which would be nice.
- The wheels look like they have cast spokes rather than laced steel ones.
- The indicators are integrated into the body-line like Scomadi and modern Vespa
- The horncasting really follows traditional Lambretta line but the headset and headlight are not round.
- The running boards sweep back with a heel brace for the pillion.
- The seat is an unusual rounded shape that follows the lines of the bodywork
UPDATE Aug 2016 – read THIS article for an update what is inside the Lambretta Special (previously called Vendetta).
So, the first part of a familiar tease campaign begins as Lambretta Consortium begin to plug their new scooter. We began our coverage of the story with this article predicting what we might see and whadya know, we we were pretty close by the looks of it.
For a start it’s clearly an automatic scooter as you can tell by the upswept bodywork needed to clear an auto-type exhaust. This was the solution used on all the modern Vespas. The only other alternative is to make the rear body wide like that of a Scomadi. Also as predicted, in terms of overall size and shape it is not entirely unlike the previous Lambretta LN125 albeit with stronger lines as typical of something penned by Gerald Kiska.
What is really unusual is the use of what look like spoked or at least finely cast wheels front and rear. My guess is that they are 12″ diameter.
The choices of engine are interesting too: 50, 125 and 180. 50 suggests that this machine will be lightweight and probably air-cooled as predicted. 125 should be the most popular size given the current EU licencing.
The interesting capacity mentioned is 180 because that is the sort of size you can safely attain by boring and stroking a 125cc base engine. 180 is actually the same capacity as Scomadi’s TL200 which uses an engine design based on an old Aprilia/Rotax design which is available to producers in Asia, however Scomadi’s engine is water-cooled.
For the Vendetta to use a water-cooled engine it would need to have radiators, but where would they be located? In the legshields like a Vespa GTS or under the floor like a Scomadi?
Certainly there are other decent 180cc engines available in Asia from the likes of SYM who make a 4-valve with 14.5hp for their Joyride, but again this is water-cooled.
Lambretta.com have reset their countdown timer on the site for another 41 days so presumably we get the next tease then.
Sticky
Out of interest we boosted the teaser image to see if it would reveal any more and we’ve managed to glean a few more details:
- The forks look like they might be telescopic which is not really a bad thing.
- There is 99% chance that it has a hydraulic front disc brake on the right side.
- The lump shown by the rear wheel could be a rear hydraulic brake, which would be nice.
- The wheels look like they have cast spokes rather than laced steel ones.
- The indicators are integrated into the body-line like Scomadi and modern Vespa
- The horncasting really follows traditional Lambretta line but the headset and headlight are not round.
- The running boards sweep back with a heel brace for the pillion.
- The seat is an unusual rounded shape that follows the lines of the bodywork
Excellent detective work / analysis as usual Sticky.
So what was all that second countdown BS about????WTF?
No more pics but now a new countdown to EICMA 2016! Problems perhaps? 🙁
Still, it may give the KTM team time to improve on their design and refine the final production model.
Here’s some free advice for you motorcycle designers who perhaps don’t know the history of classic scooters….a turning mudguard on a slim style S3 type Lambretta is a design faux pas that follows on from the comparative ugliness of the Super Starstream, the Lamby Polo and most latterly the failed LN.
Motorcycle designers cannot comprehend the essential, elemental Yin and Yang of successful classic scooter shapes. The Darwinist survival of the fittest struggle that saw hundreds of hybrid designs come and go in sixty years or so, from ABC to Zundapp, just leaving the two evolutionary apex models. Vespa and Lambretta. One the female archytype, being curvacious with a voluminous curved moving mudguard and the other being the male archytype, long and slim with a determined fixed pointy nosecone for a mudguard. Scooteristi know what I am talking about but to biker types it is a different language.
Whilst this new machine may be clad in iron, it looks like it will miss the point styling wise…again. I hope not, as we need more choice in the scootering world as our biking cousins have a world of retro iron machines to choose from. Otherwise I will buy a Scomadi, plastic though it is, because it is faithful to its design roots and is the adopted son of British scooterists.
Please get it right Mr KTM.