Scooter Center SCOOTERIST WEEKENDER | RALLERY

Scooter Center Köln’s 30th anniversary was certainly a worthy celebration. Customisers and dealers from all over Europe met in the German city of Cologne to display state-of-the-art scooter culture.

Essentially, this was a one day event set in a spacious (20,000 sq ft) airport hangar converted to a stylish exhibition hall. An ideal venue for any automotive event, which – thanks to the glorious whether and the massive glass front – presented the scooters and parts on display in a superb sunlight.

Around 150 custom scooters plus a crowd of close to 2000 added to a fantastic vibe. We’ve already covered some of the big hitters from the show in more detail over the past two weeks but there was plenty to see elsewhere and of course lots and lots of top German custom scooters. In this final part of our coverage we’ll take a good look at what was on show.

SuperLui

Another great innovation was shown by Tom from SuperLui in South Tyrol (Northern Italy). His engine casings are designed for Lambretta Vega models (unfortunately, these cases won’t fit on a J-Range) and accommodate any Lambretta Li-based engine internals and externals. In other words, you could fit a gearbox/clutch/primary plus any barrel/carb/exhaust combination from the ‘big’ Lambrettas.

Retrospective Scooters

This company from London specialise in electric conversions for vintage scooters; Lambretta Li and J-Range as well as Vespa small, large, and wide frames. Talking to owner Niall revealed just how sophisticated his conversion kits are: The complete set-up consists of a DC brushless electric motor, controller, swing arm, LG lithium-ion battery (or two – depending on model and choice) with a tray, charger, and various other bits.

The result of five years development distilled a kit that can be fitted by anybody with average mechanical skills and, essentially, allows the scooter to be converted back to petrol use without any problems or ugly scars. Test riding the Vespa small frame and Lambretta versions confirmed not only that this is the best engineered electric conversion I have come across so far, but it also left a big smile on the face of a veteran petrolhead.

Nagy Blechroller

Vespa wide frame expert Nagy Blechroller had some of his latest builds on show. The big news of the day was that Andreas has decided to go full time on his business now to meet growing demand from customers worldwide. Well done! You can find out more here.

Kingwelle

German performance specialist Kingwelle developed a full circle crank specifically for the Malossi VR1 reed valve cases for Vespa large frame models. Since the inlet is positioned farther towards the barrel the crank webs do not obstruct the flow anymore, but provide better pre-compression, smoothness and stability. Strokes are available up to 65 mm, combined with a Quattrini M244 this would give a displacement of 265 cc.

Blechraum

Blechraum are fabricators from Düsseldorf, who offer any type of bodywork repair and modification. A lot of their work revolves around the restoration of vintage scooters, the aim is always to retain as much of the original metal and paintwork as possible.

Sucram 70

A new dealer on the German scene is Sucram 70, who started restoring vintage speedos (faces and mechanics) for members of the German Scooter Forum. Apparently, demand has now got a stage where they decided to run this a professional business.

Jola

Jola started off with laser etching, soon they added tooling to their portfolio. Today the company from Southern Germany manufacture an upmarket but affordable range of extractors for large and small frame Vespas.

Gowomo

Gowomo is a new company by Oliver Kluger. If you would like to rent a converted camper van for a holiday that can take any scooter piggyback, then he is your man. And he is also the man who founded the Scooter Center in 1992. A couple of years ago he fancied a change and started this new operation. The Center is now in the safe and capable hands of long-time business partner Ulf (who joined in ’94) and his right-hand man Philipp.

Epilogue

We will leave you to have a look around on the video above and examine the stunning custom scooters in the gallery below. As you know, the pictures say more than the 1000 words, which I could have easily written about every single one of them.

So, what is left to say is that this was a very enjoyable high-quality event. Will there be another one? Given the festive cause of this day we do not expect a follow-on anytime soon – but we will certainly watch out for it.

Words: Marcus Broix – Spirit of ’84 Scooterists

Credits Photography:
Carsten Wisniewski @vesp.a.r.t.
Cristian Rubio @CrisisStudio
Zoé Leon