The scooter photographed earlier this year at the 2011 NY Scooter Club Block Party. Photograph Courtesy, Vespa Brooklyn.

As the year begins to draw to a close, if you’re considering your first scooter in 2012, history shows us that now is the time to scour the web for used scooter deals.

As we enter the Winter many owners decide not to invest in another year of riding and price to sell. Come Springtime as the market for used bikes hots up, so do prices, so if you plan ahead, there are deals to be had now.

Today on CraigsList, past contributor to NYC Scootering, Melissa, is selling her beloved 2009 Vespa S150. The bike has a unique red and black two-tone color scheme, and comes ready to ride with a complete matching riders kit – a medium red copter helmet, gloves, raincoat and scooter cover. The scooter and her owner were recently featured in a CNN Money editorial on scooterists.

Melissa’s asking the Blue Book value, $3100, or best offer and can be seen in Park Slope. Head on over to her CraigsList post to get in touch.

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Photograph courtesy Orin O'Neill, Scootin' Old Skool.

Even if you don’t consider yourself much of a grease monkey when it comes to your modern Vespa, it’s useful to get comfortable with some basic maintenance tasks like prepping your scooter for the Winter.

You won’t need to swap your battery very often but when it happens, you’ll be glad you read Orin O’Neill’s article over at Scootin’ Old Skool. In the case of the GTS the battery is located in the footwell rather than under the seat in the case of the LX and S but it’s easily removed with just a Phillips screwdriver.

Head on over to Scootin’ Old Skool for the full article.

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The LX150 remains the Vespa marque's most popular scooter this year.

Back in 2008 Piaggio North America had one of its best years ever as skyrocketing gas prices provoked commuters to think twice about their chosen form of transportation. The scooter business was booming and everyone set to profit from the growth was smiling from ear to ear.

Then gas prices fell, and so did scooter sales. Established dealers were left with models on the floor that nobody wanted, and many new dealerships that had sprung up in response to scooter fever found themselves closing as quickly as they had opened.

Now, a couple of years later, US scooter sales are once again on the rise as gas prices (and the economy in general) prove challenging.

The LA Times business desk released a story yesterday highlighting scooter sales for all the major manufacturers are now up close to 30% over equivalent quarter sales from 2010. Importantly, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council, this rise in sales is above and beyond any other category of powered two wheeler.

A quick glance at Piaggio’s Vespa USA site certainly confirms that the brand is going after cash-strapped commuters in a big way with the brand continuing to push the daily savings provided by, “Vespanomics.”

Also of interest is that Piaggio in particular are seeing a rise in larger-capacity sales with scooters in the 150cc-300cc seeing significant growth as, one assumes, consumers look to bikes that can get them off the back-streets and out on the highway without making the transition to a higher capacity motorcycle.

The Times also leverages the article to introduce its coverage of the scooter exhibit currently on show at the Petersen Automotive Review. You can see photographs and read our review of the exhibition here, or click on through to the LA Times photo gallery of the show for more.

For the full LA Times article, click here.

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Not so with this seller who has a terrific P200 up for grabs. In addition to the listing which confirms that the bike has had a top-to-bottom restoration including a complete engine rebuild just 3K or so miles back, and new electrics including the wiring harness, the post also includes plenty of video footage of the bike in action.

Take a look at one of the seller’s videos embedded here:

The seller has an additional three videos to view that can be accessed via the original post. All this for a very reasonable $2500 for such a desirable bike.

The catch? While the seller is advertising on the NYC area CraigsList, they haven’t confirmed their location. The bike is wearing Maine plates if that’s a reliable clue.

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Normally when I see a ride with a paint-job like this my mind goes immediately to Vietnam.

This bike’s owner however has all the receipts to prove the $9000 that was put into this 1969 Vespa to prove it has never left the country and the restoration, while not to my taste, is legit.

In addition to the head-turning color, the bike includes a fully rebuilt engine.

A bike as unique as this of course does not come cheap, but if you have $4500 spare, you’ll shortly be riding in style. Available to view on the Lower East Side.

Click here to contact the seller via CraigsList. Somewhere out there is a Vespa nut who loves them some pink.

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Style on 3 wheels.

Although I have never owned a Piaggio Ape or Innocenti Lambro, I have always loved their functionality.  When I finally made my first pilgrimage to Italy, the little 3 wheeled vehicles were everywhere.  Well, for those of you who love all things classic Italian, there is another famous moto-manufacturer who had a 3-wheeler of it’s own.  Back in the 1950′s, Ducati, makers of extremely cool motorcycles, made their own version of the beloved trike.  They made 3 versions, a 48cc (called the Fattorino), and 175cc and 200cc versions (both called the Muletto).  I would love to cruise the streets of Williamsburg in one of these babies!  Function AND fashion…

Bike Exif has the full story and some great photographs.

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Photograph courtesy, Piaggio.

Piaggio has just announced an MP3 sales event with some great price reductions for scooterists looking to finally fulfill their three-wheeled fantasies.

Piaggio is slashing the price on its MP3 250, down to $4,999 from the original MSRP of $7,199. That’s over $2000 in savings.

The higher capacity MP3 400 is also on sale at a similarly reduced price, available at $5,899, down from $8,699.

The catch? These savings apply to new and unused 2008 model MP3s (prior to the recent slimming of the design.) Other special offers are also available on more recent 2009 and 2010 models, though the discounts aren’t as deep.

While it’s a shame that this reveals the dirty little secret that Piaggio still has three year old stock it needs to shift, the marque’s loss could be your gain if you’ve been waiting for the right excuse to add that third wheel to your scootering adventures.

The offer is available through September 30th. Talk to your local Piaggio dealer to learn more.

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Vespa celebrates 65 years in Rome this month. Photograph courtesy of Bruno dePrato, Cycle World

It’s official, Vespa can now officially collect on its 401K as it turns 65 years old today.

The Vespa brand was first founded on April 23rd, 1946 as the patent was filed in Florence for Piaggio’s vision for low cost human transport with their first 98cc model.

Piaggio has sold more than 17 million Vespas units during the last 65 years and has had particular success during recent years. 133,000 units sold in 2010 which marked the fifth consecutive year that Vespa sales figures have reached 6 digits. Much higher than sales in 2003 for example which only reached 50 thousand units and marked a turning point for the company as it underwent new management.

Piaggio has chosen this anniversary to re-introduce the famed PX in Europe, itself 34 years old, which is the brand’s most successful model having sold 3 million units worldwide. Next year Piaggio will also officially enter the Indian market with a local factory underway for the first time rather than the brand’s previous tact of licensing to local companies Bajaj and LML. The factory will compliment Piaggio’s existing Vespa manufacturing plants in Italy and Vietnam and start by producing the massively successful LX125. India is the world’s second largest market for two-wheelers.

Piaggio has a month of celebratory events underway which began with a parade of Vespas in Rome earlier this month pictured above. Happy birthday Vespa. Here’s to 65 more years!

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You don’t see too many Bajaj bikes in New York which makes this candidate more than worthy of posting. For those not familiar with the Bajaj scooters, think of them as ans Indian versions of the Stella, which in turn is an Indian incarnation of the famous Vespa PX no longer available here in the US.

The Bajaj line of scooters originally started in the Sixties with a Piaggio license to build bikes based on the then Vespa Sprint. This began to morph around 1980 into a unique design while still maintaining much of the key DNA of a Vespa.

By the time the Bajaj Auto Company first designed the Legend in 2002 it had become very much its own bike. So much so in fact that the Legend has a four-stroke power-plant in line with contemporary Vespa LXs and similar while maintaining a manual shift gear box making it the only manual shift transmission four-stroke scooter on the road in New York at the moment until the much delayed four-stroke Stella hits our shores.

No mention of mileage but the owner has recently given the bike a solid once over and changed the tires. $2000 Midtown East. Click here for the listing. For those interested in learning more about Bajaj scooters, there’s a nice personal retrospective on Bajaj’s role in Indian daily life here.

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Now here’s a particularly nice find. A ’74 Vespa Rally (Rallys – love ‘em – one of my favorites from the Piaggio stable.)

This one’s had lots of nice work done it by a scooter owner who clearly knows his or her stuff. Here are the details from the post:

Custom deep copper paint by East Coast Color. Malossi 210 cylinder kit with ports matched, Mazzucchelli Crank, new seals bearings, shifting cross, Cosa clutch, electronic ignition (no-battery), Sito plus exhaust, properly jetted 24/24 carb, Euro Rally 180 handlebar/headlight assembly, new shocks (rear Bitubo type), rally seat, complete new wiring, cables, hardware. Converted to premix as was typical on the earlier versions. Retains the 1974 key below the front of the seat location which works well and looks clean.

Says it all really doesn’t it? Everything you would want and more in a restored bike.

2200 bones gets you the bike. No location listed, but you can contact the original seller via the original post here.

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