Streamline Seats have been around for a few years now – 2013 to be precise. They’re a German aftermarket producer of classic scooter seats (and a few other high-quality scooter products). They’ve just launched a couple of new Lambretta seats to join their existing Vespa range and have asked ScooterLab to have a look at one of them – the Vento Short.
Vento Short or Long?
The new Vento seats for Lambretta Series 2 and 3 come in two different lengths – short and long. The short version stops before the rear frame grill and is only really meant for the rider (or rider and non-socially-distancing friend). The long version – above, is for rider and pillion and stretches back towards the rear light.
Custom finishes
One USP of Streamline’s business is that the seats can be custom finished to the customer’s specific requirements. With a multitude of options available on their online configurator when you place an order it’s simple enough to get an idea of what your finished seat will look like.
You get loads of options for the deck colour, side colour, piping, seam on the deck, seam pattern and a choice of standard, or fancy seat hinge and the option to have a lock or not.
Here’s what I chose to suit my Lambretta
Deck: Black
Sides: Black Honeycomb
Piping: Stonegrey
Seams deck: black
Seam pattern: Parallel
Fastening system: Front hinge
Lock? No lock
What’s in the box?
It takes up to three weeks for your seat to be hand made in Germany, depending on how busy they are. Mine arrived after just two weeks.
You can watch the unboxing video above but it arrives with a bag of fittings, a couple of stickers and a waterproof ‘shower cap’ to cover the seat when it rains.
There were no instructions but that’s because you can download them directly from the Streamline Seats website. Although to be fair it’s hardly rocket science.
Fitting
After removing my beautiful original Spanish accessory Lambretta seat (it’s not as comfortable as it looks and is a bit lopsided thanks to a lardy señorita sitting side-saddle on it since 1961) I fitted the new seat. The bolts supplied with the seat were about 25mm too long for my Eibar – or at least the two back ones were. It may well be different on an S3 but on mine, they caught the ‘shelf’ at the back of my toolbox. Rather than cutting them down, I swapped them for my original seat bolts but will cut them and fit when I get round to it (probably).
The seat bracket itself is on elongated holes so it can be moved a few mm forwards or backwards for the optimal fit. If you opt to go for the standard fittings rather than upgraded hinge the seat slides on and locks into place. It needs removing for fuelling but only takes a few seconds.
Fittings
There are also two threaded seat pins, nuts, washers, a tie bar and spacers to replace the original seat catch. These basically just provide a positive stop for the seat to drop into when in the closed position. There’s no ‘catch’ as such.
Long-range tank
This is nothing to do with the general fitting of the seat in ordinary circumstances but I’ve got a long-range tank on my S2 with captive nuts welded on to the inside of the tank bracket. The tank bracket doesn’t line up 100% with the two holes in the frame so it’s a faff trying to get the bolts in if you take the seat catch, or tank off. This meant I was struggling to get both seat pins in without one being offset at a jaunty cross-threaded angle. I ended up drilling one of the captive nuts out of the tank bracket in the end. Life will be much simpler for me in the future, although I need the long spindly fingers of E.T to hold the bottom nut in place whilst tightening it.
Without that issue, fitting the Streamline Seat is a simple job and should only take a human 10-15 minutes.
The fancy alloy hinge is one of the main features that sets Streamline apart from ‘ordinary’ seats. It’s an optional extra but well worth having. It’s a double-hinged alloy affair that will keep the seat raised until you place it down again. The action is smooth, it looks cool and is finished with typical German precision.
Mind your fingers
Although you need to remember that your new seat’s hinge makes it quite easy to trap your fingers. Especially if you’re silly enough to put the seat down whilst tightening the nuts inside your toolbox and your fingers are in the way of the hinge at the top end… Only an idiot would do that.
Price
To be fair the price isn’t over the top for what is, in essence, a custom finished seat made to your own requirements. The seat itself costs €298 and the hinge upgrade is an extra €109, that equals €407 – or £363 in real money. There are plenty of ‘off the shelf’ scooter seats that cost as much.
Verdict
Obviously, at the minute, we’re not able to ride about on our scooters just for fun (coronavirus stopped play if you’re reading this in the future) so other than sitting on the seat to push the scooter back into the garage I’ve not had a chance to test it for comfort.
The seat feels well-padded though but quite firm. I expect it’ll be comfier than the wonky seat it replaces and I imagine it’ll be a bit kinder to the backside than the SIP racing seat that I have on my PX. I’m not expecting it to be as relaxing as my sofa at home though. Comfort isn’t always at the top of my scooter wish list, style comes above that. One thing is for certain, the Streamline Seat looks cool and it suits the shape of the Series 2 (and 3) perfectly. That’s thanks to the Germans reverse engineering it using 3D CAD to achieve the perfect fit.
The quality, look and feel of the seat is exceptional. It looks the part, fits perfectly and makes a nice finishing touch to a custom, street racer or rusty street sleeper like my Quattrini.
How to get one…
You can visit Streamline Seats and choose your own seat for your Vespa Smallframe/Largeframe oldie, P Range, T5, PK, Rally, ACMA, or Lambretta. They do a choice of sports or touring seats and various other parts and accessories.
Streamline Vento seat gallery
Get yourself sitting comfortably and delve into the SLUK Shop
To buy the short version of your seat fit my Lambretta scooter how much
hi can you keep air scoop with this seat please