Rimini Lambretta Centre open day 2024 | FEATURE

From Classic to Crazy. These days Rimini Lambretta Centre is very much a two-headed eagle. 

The first head – Marco (left on the image above) – concentrates on the things that made the shop famous in the first place: restoration, customising and sourcing of scooters and accessories for the discerning Lambretta rider. This market has morphed and the shop has adapted with it. This was the ‘Classic’ part of the event title.

Crazy

The second head – Micky – represents the ever-developing sportier side of the business: Casa Performance. Together with Lorenzo they are responsible for all the radical engines built on the CasaCase platform including the SST and SSR265, as well as the insane CP250 twin with its Grand Prix kart-based cylinders. This is the ‘Crazy’ part of the event title.

Sledgehammer for €5

The new product in the CasaCase range is the Sledgehammer 333cc touring motor; which we covered in another article.  First prize in the raffle was a partially-assembled Sledgehammer 333 engine worth €3,999. Raffle tickets only cost €5 each; which lead to massive interest.

A rare sight

There were two themes from the RLC displays. The first was TV175 Series 1s. These are rare on any scooter event, but somehow Marco managed to amass 13 of them; including the factory prototype from Vittorio Tessera’s Museum. The TV175 is like a crazy halfway-house between the technology of the Lambretta LD and the LI-series that replaced both of them. In the end, it was an over-complicated commercial flop. The smooth but heavy engine project was abandoned, but the larger all-enclosed bodywork carried on to the LI Series 1. 

Seeing double

The second theme was twins. Besides CP’s own twin was another factory prototype of Innocenti’s cancelled 200cc twin project. Scooterboys would appreciate the home-made twin options which seem to have been built all over the world at some stage or another. Locally, these consisted of a home-made twin that was built in Rimini in 1974 using two 175cc cylinders and a mad creation built on a model C chassis with water-cooled Yamaha RD cylinders fitted. Crazy – tick!

Speakers

A whole day is a long time to keep people entertained on an industrial estate, so this year the plan was to punctuate the day with guest speakers talking in the workshop area of the shop. With Gegio from Scooterismo and founder of RLC, Dean Orton translating between both English and Italian, everyone could keep up with what was said.

Failed courier

First up was some lanky bloke talking about his 15-country 2015 trip ‘Twin Town Courier’; which was originally intended to be a book, but due to a dispute with a former employer instead was permanently side-lined in favour of setting up this very web magazine (SLUK) together with Iggy. The biggest cheer came from explaining that by letting a young teenage Vespa rider from Nis in Serbia help rebuild and ride my SX200, I’d managed to convert him to Lambrettas. 

Time served

Next up was Tony Tessier; a man who was competing for the British team in the Moto Giro d’Italia on Lambretta around the same time I was born, and is still riding today. More than that, Tony, who now lives in France is deeply involved in organising this year’s Euro Lambretta in Magny Cours. Talk about a lifetime of influence in the Lambretta world.

Ancillotti

Headlining was Florentine legend Alberto Ancillotti: one of the brothers whose name launched thousands of replica products, thanks to their sprint records in the 1960s. Alberto explained how they took their 106mph Lambretta sprinter (on display) from Italy to Elvington in Yorkshire on the roof of a Fiat 500…

Dyno competition

Throughout the day, in the moments between the speakers, the Casa Performance boys ran the dyno for anyone who wanted to play. With their own twin out of the game, it left a competition between CP customers and the many tuned Vespas in attendance. By the end of the day people were stripping off air filters and dropping main jet sizes for glory. The eventual winner was the water-cooled SSR265 custom cutdown of Carlos from Swiss Tony’s Scooters, whose JG Scooters-prepared engine topped the 50hp mark.

King Carlos

The prize, given to distinctly XXL Carlos was a specially selected RLC shirt in size small; which he sportingly put on. It would be unfair to say that he looked like a tribute act to Daffyd from Little Britain, so I won’t.

Other distractions

In the closed-off street outside were stalls from many other scooter businesses and RLC collaborators like TV Scooter Garage. SIP Scootershop promoted their new programmable version of the Vape ignition. We have one on test and we’ll give you an update on that in the future. Nisa Seats had a few new Lambretta prototypes, including a stylish stainless steel-based long back seat with a sprint rack on the rear. Again, more on that soon.

A full programme

On top of that, there were Vespa tuners aplenty: FC Solutions and ElleZeta; Bolla from San Marino, FRT-BFA and a host of people who can turn smallframes into missiles. Emilia Romagna has always been home to 2-stroke tuning insanity in every format, as the slammed and tuned Ape vans also proved.

Aperitivo

After an all-day bar and food, an evening do at the nearby Sidro nightclub it was a relatively early Sunday start for the 120 people taking in the 60km ride-out. Under cloudless skies, this took in the breathtaking hill town of San Leo, an aperitivo in Borghi and finished off with a 5-course lunch at Il Castellaro restaurant. I don’t think anyone could go away dissatisfied with the effort that the RLC and CP boys put into the show.

The stress of organising such a big event (over 500 people in attendance) was clearly quite telling on some of the team, who worked very hard in the weeks leading up to it, so don’t expect the next one before 2030…

Sticky

Additional images by Sarah from Wilt Squad and Nicolas Grandi