Well, what can we say about ScooterExpo that hasn’t already been said on social media? We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive feedback.
ScooterExpo is probably the largest and most diverse scooter custom show in the world. Hosted by ourselves and ScooterNova Magazine, with the kind support of our this year’s sponsors, Lexham Insurance and VE (UK) we wanted ScooterExpo 2 to be a special kind of show. We weren’t to be disappointed!
The sheer calibre of entrants was immense. We extended our 100-scooter limit to 119 by reducing the trade space slightly. That helped to leave the floor of both halls free of stalls so your eye line was drawn to the feast of scooters lined up neatly across the vast expanse of the wooden floors.
We wanted Expo to be visually attractive, spacious and give showgoers the ability to see the scooters from all angles. There were no ‘back to back’ rows, or scooters crammed into darkly lit corners. Everything was in single file and could be viewed from the front and rear.
No competition
We also wanted the show to have a relaxed vibe to it, so it was an exhibition rather than a competition. Every scooter there was included by merit, provenance or is time served. Not being judged must be a relief to many owners and for some the thought of an extra trophy for a groaning cabinet must fill them with dread. Instead, we had some nice laser-etched slate coasters made to go in the competitor’s goodie bags.
70s style
If your scooter was in the show it didn’t need to be the shiniest, most heavily engraved or have the best paint. Local chap, Martyn Dudley proved that with his self-built Serveta Li150 Special. It’s been owned by Martyn since 1973 when it was a year old. He customised it in 1979. ‘Survivor’ was parked up in 1980 to allow him to do the family thing and it hadn’t moved until recently.
This scooter is like a time capsule to a forgotten era, showing the trends of the 1970s. It sat in his garage for 43 years before being dusted off for the show. Unconventional, and shabby, featuring paintwork of its time it was a massive contrast to some of the showstopping full customs it rubbed shoulders with but it needed to be there.
Blackpool beach
That relaxed vibe filtered down to the 50 former Blackpool beach deckchairs we’d hired for the event. They seemed to be full for most of the day, both inside and outside the halls. Beautiful warm sunshine allowed people to chat and chill out beside the real ale bar and food gazebo, or relax inside in the shade if they preferred. This alone was a massive contrast to our 2019 ScooterExpo, where torrential rain dampened the event but still didn’t extinguish its spirit.
Hall 1
Hall 1 hosted around 80 scooters and a few selected traders, including our sponsors. There were also stalls from Scoots & Soul Seats, Toots ‘get you home’ spares and Dave Dickinson’s DDK Custom Paint. Dave was doing some live airbrushing during the day, a true master of his craft.
We also had a SLUK/ScooterNova stall with merchandise from our respective magazines and show t-shirts and patches. We’ve got a few of these left over if you missed them on the day. Buy yours here.
Gallery and video
There’s a video from Hall 1 above and a gallery of images below…
Speakers Corner
This hall also played host to our guest speakers, Norrie Kerr and Mike Hayman, the duo spent three sessions regaling the audience with tales of years gone by, their racing history and careers within the scooter industry. They enjoyed themselves so much that they ended up doing an extra hour stint. They reluctantly finished just before the show was ending.
Awards
We’d asked the guest speakers to choose a favourite scooter each to award a special ‘Speakers Choice’ award trophy to. Norrie chose number 48, ‘Pandemonium Device’. A beautiful liquid-cooled grey Vespa Faro Basso with lots of well-engineered subtle details. This was also my favourite, an exquisite scooter.
Mike chose number 56, Brown Sugar – a custom metalflake SX. He chose that because the owner had worked on it and sprayed it himself, which he said made it more personal and true to the spirit of scootering.
Dream Stealer
Amongst many remastered, revamped and recommissioned scooters of yesteryear, there were lots of firm favourites, current multi-show winners and of course a few new machines. The biggest reveal of the day was Jason Stephenson’s brand new and freshly built Dream Stealer. It’s a full-blown DDK sprayed ‘The Cult’ based custom Lambretta with all the bling and gold plating a scooter of this calibre deserves. Even the unseen headset fork clamp is engraved and gold plated on this scooter! The scooter build was only finished by Rob Miller at Simply Retro on the Saturday of the event. You can find a full feature in ScooterNova magazine very soon but you can see more photos in the galleries.
Hall 2
Held over two halls, the second hall held another 36 scooters including a few choppers, Liquid and Dead Men’s Shoes were the two outstanding ones for me. I had to move the completely original and one-off chrome chop, Liquid on Saturday when we were setting up. Believe me, it’s much quicker to turn around an aircraft carrier. Although, I must say it’s much lighter than I imagined and very well balanced.
From A to…
Hall 2 also housed some stunning vintage machines, from John Walklate’s lovely 1948 Model A Lambretta to Jeff Wilke’s ‘Red Ferret’ a stunning 1954 Model F Racer, very cool.
Barn find Vespa SS90
On the Vespa side of the fence, Kirk’s barn find Vespa SS90 must be one of the best finds of the century, very lucky to rescue this original paint machine.
There was also a plethora of Vespa SS/GS and Rally models amongst even more classic Lambrettas.
Lee Sparkes also revealed his recently completed Spanish Vespa Primavera ‘Correos de España. A rare Post Office machine which was produced specifically for the Spanish post office.
Hall 2 gallery
I could go on about lots of individual scooters in both halls but with 119 to choose from you’d soon be bored of my waffle. Hopefully, the photos in the galleries and the video will help fill in a few blanks for you if you missed the show, or didn’t get a chance to study them all.
More traders
Hall 2 also had a border of selected scooter traders, with K2 Customs, JB Fabrications, Nankang Tyres, Slacker the Pinstriper, Crusader promotions, Scooter Surgery, Go Scoot, Vespa Jets, Scooter Restorations, JB Tuning, Swiss Tony and H&H auctions all showing their wares.
With a relaxed ending and people starting to drift off home, the show closed at around 3:30, just leaving our band of helpers to clear everything up and pack it away.
All in all a very successful show, only blighted slightly by a couple of other scooter events that clashed dates. They weren’t advertised when we booked this show back in October. Although, to be fair the car park was rammed and quite chaotic until lunchtime so we’d have struggled to get another 500 people in!
Thank you all
On behalf of SLUK and ScooterNova Magazine, I’d like to thank everybody who made it possible. Especially all the owners for getting scooters ready for the event, we only had a few absence’s on the day and those had good reasons. We had a few extra scooters dotted around though to make up for them.
We’d also like to thank all the people who turned up to enjoy the day, all the traders and our sponsors – Lexham and VE and our guest speakers. Special thanks to the people who got stuck in to help us mark out and set the rooms up on Saturday and Sunday, or direct entrants to their correct halls and spaces (thanks Toots). It’s quite a mammoth task.
Thanks also to the scooterists who helped man (and woman) the doors and sorted the car park out. Much appreciated. A final thanks goes to the kind gentleman with the Vespa SS180 for his thoughtful gifts, they will take pride of place on my office walls.
Words: Iggy
Photos: Iggy and Ellis
