Spotted yesterday in Manhattan. One of the first batches of the four-stroke iteration of the successful Genuine Scooter Company Stella.

How can you tell? The grill on the right-hand cowl shown under the crash-bars distinguishes the 4T from it’s 2-stroke ancestor providing better air flow to the updated power-plant hidden beneath. The bike itself looks well ridden and is already showing some of the daily wear-and-tear of life on the mean streets of New York City.

If you’re the lucky owner, we’d love to hear how she rides. All the modern goodness of four-stroke efficiency behind the fun of a kick-startin’ shifty.

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Straight out of the crate in Los Angeles last week. Photograph courtesy of snapshot05, Flickr.

It’s been a long wait, but forum chatter, photographic evidence, and local dealers have confirmed that the first shipment of Genuine Scooter Company four-stroke Stellas has indeed finally hit our shores after a painful series of delays during 2010.

While the Genuine Scooter Company were quick to hit the buzz when the bike was first announced early last year, there has been no official announcement from the company this week, rather Genuine has left it to local dealers to confirm arrivals (and sigh relief) as the bikes have shown up on their doorsteps.

The new 50 state emissions compliant bikes landed in California last week (appropriate given it was California’s strict emissions laws that put the Vespa PX to bed in the US) and have been gradually making their way East over the last few days. Philadelphia Scooters are proudly showing off the new arrivals on their Facebook page and a quick call to local dealerBrooklyn Powersports has confirmed that they are now very much in stock in New York City. Williamsburg’s sister store to Vespa Soho Carbon Negative have not yet received shipment but as a recently announced Genuine Scooters dealer are expecting them any day now.

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Eric's Stella. Photograph courtesy of snapshot05, Flickr.

Ah, the four-stroke Stella. While our friends around the world already have a 2010 riding season under their belt of LML’s four-stroke update to its Vespa P-series clone, those of us in the US have had an agonizing wait

Delayed by import and emissions bureaucracy, it seems most recently that a back-and-forth over the choice of glue used to adhere an environmental compliancy sticker has been enough to prevent us Americans from getting our grubby mitts on a bike that has already proven successful elsewhere. The bike is now finally slowly beginning to trickle in to US dealers.

But one man stands alone, ModernBuddy forum member Eric has a four-stroke Stella in his possession direct from the Genuine folks in Chicago. How? It’s a retired promotional model that was doing the rounds during Genuine’s original fan-fare for the bike.

While the four-stroke Stella has already had a compelling review from Motorcycle-USA.com, Eric’s review is the first honest to goodness user review on this side of the pond. Eric, who’s only had limited experience with manual shift scoots in the past, has put 3000 miles and counting on the beast and has kindly posted a lengthy review of his impressions. Importantly Eric notes that, “Neither Genuine nor my dealer has asked me to review the scooter or in any way influenced this review.”

So how does it fair? Very well; and it continues the promising trend of Stella 4T news given the positive sales of the bike worldwide in it’s other guises (e.g. LML Star 4 in the UK,) and other glowing professional reviews.

Eric notes that the bike proves faster than he was expecting with great torque particularly after breaking it in. Also good news is that the new power-plant has been positioned centrally to give the bike more balance. Listen, I love my Vespa PX to death, but sometimes that side-mounted engine and it’s pull to the side makes me feel like I’m riding a drunk camel.

The not so positive? The white-wall tires the bike ships with should be ditched sooner rather than later and performance can be hindered by the Californian requirement to have an evap system which can be easily – ahem – rectified, particularly given here in NYC it is not an emissions requirement. Finally, while many P-series accessories and cables continue to fit, an all new engine under the hood means that engine spares are a little harder to come by. A situation that is bound to improve as the bike continues to sell well globally.

For Eric’s full review, click here. Here’s hoping we’ll see the bike here in NYC soon. Vespa Soho‘s Williamsburg off-shoot Carbon Negative has recently joined Brooklyn Harley Davidson (now “Brooklyn Powersports” as NYC stockists of Genuine Scooter Company scooters so when it does arrive in our fair city, it’ll be easily found at local dealers.

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Photograph courtesy of Scooter Lounge.

If you’re like me, you may be using the advent of spring to attend to a few maintenance matters on your bike. If you’re a Vespa P-series owner or a Genuine Scooter Company Stella owner one matter on your list may be a new front shock absorber given we’re deep in the middle of pothole season.

Thankfully the excellent Scooter Lounge is here to help and they rightfully point out that it’s time to replace a shock (front or back for that matter) when it becomes spongy and bouncy. Replacing a front shock on these bikes is a straightforward affair that basically involves removing the shock’s top two bolts then letting it hang loose to give you access to remove the bottom two bolts and then rinse and repeat in reverse order with a new shock. All in all a half-hour job with a new shock ready to go and the right wrench.

You can check out Scooter Lounge’s article here.

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With the advent of better weather comes the decision by some scooter owners as to whether to take their current ride out for another season. Someone else’s decision to part with their ride could be to your benefit this spring.

Today is a 2008 Genuine Scooter Company Stella. The bike has been garage kept but of course has one or two NYC scratches, but judging from the photographs appears to be in fantastic shape. $2000.

The bike has two-and-a-half thousand on the clock which is appropriate for a 2008 and comes with cover, rack and net.

Contact the Clinton Hill owner through the original posting here.

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Luckily for us they took their camera along and have been kind enough to post a FLICKR page of their finds. Highlights include a glimpse of the newly reborn Vespa PX, a look at Piaggio’s concept car designed for emerging markets in the same vein as the Smart Car and a prototype electric version of the LML Star (Stella.) Perhaps not surprisingly, the plastic Lambretta relaunch booth is empty.

Highlights below. All photographs courtesy of SIP Scootershop.

Now there's a scooter we can get behind. A crowd gathers.

Crickets, and men in suits. The Lambretta booth.

The LML Star Electric concept reports a top speed of a whopping 28 miles per hour.

The Piaggio NT3 concept car. Piaggio is targeting the emerging Indian and Chinese car markets.

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Photograph courtesy of Motorcycle-USA.com.

With the Genuine Scooter Company’s four-stroke iteration of it’s flagship Stella in current import limbo, it’s been tough getting any fresh insight on how the bike actually performs compared to its popular two-stroke predecessor.

Thankfully, while US scooterists who pre-ordered the scoot continue to wait to get their grubby hands on the bike, Motorcycle-USA.com provides us with some new news in the form of  a thought-provoking outsiders perspective on the idiosyncrasies of riding a bike that combines a bang-up-to-date engine with vintage everything else.

Contributor Gabe Ets Hokin observes that when modern-day car drivers or bike riders say they want to ride something straight out of the good-ole-days, they’re lying. We take so many advances of the past thirty years for granted that we forget that driving a thirty year old machine can be well, er, an experience.

Regarding the Stella he observes:

Like the original P200E (or PX150, if you ever rode one of those), the Stella is a refined, well-engineered product—within limits. The motor is appliance-like, clearly intended for maximum function and economy, so while it starts easily and runs well, it’s as far from high-performance as you can get. It’s rough and buzzy like a two-stroke, and retains the whirring, rattling noise a Vespa owner will expect. But the exhaust note is lower and thumpier, leaving no doubt of its four-stroke redesign. But riding it is a lot like the old P(only slower); redline comes quickly, necessitating quick shifting action on the handlebar-mounted shifter. Keeping up with traffic is easy, if said traffic isn’t trying to race with you, and the scoot quickly gets up to its 30-40 mph cruising speed. Faster than that is possible, but hardly relaxing.

Heck, that just about describes my description of riding any vintage bike. A friend of mine once described riding a vintage scoot as an “agricultural” experience to which I concur. That said, Hokin agrees that buyers looking at the Stella 4T are looking for the journey, not the destination:

But the Stella isn’t about doing the Hustle. It’s about grooving to your own soundtrack, and enjoying a very elemental scooter experience. It looks right, performs right (although the two-stroke was probably more fun) and will convince you—and anybody who’s looking—that you’re riding a vintage Italian scooter. It’s far from perfect, but so were the originals, which is probably why there are vintage Vespa clubs but no rallies for Yamaha Razz owners.

Click here for the full review over at Motorcycle-USA.com.

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Spare parts and accessories provider Scooter Mercato have a nice photographic slide show of the steps involved in removing your wheels, disassembling the rims, replacing the tubes and tires and putting them back on your bike.

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. What are a thousand pictures worth? See below:

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Genuine Scooter Company Stellas pop up regularly in the New York City area CraigsList pages but what won’t pop up regularly is a limited edition “Atomic Fireball” model.

Back in the Spring of 2005, Genuine Scooters got together with Ferrara Pan Candies to put out a limited run of one hundred and fifty Atomic Fireball editions of their flagship scooter in honor of the famous Atomic Fireball.

What you’re getting here is however a little bit of fireball and a little less atomic. Unfortunately due to a previous owner the bike has been stripped of it’s unique fireball livery and decals.

Fortunately the atomic end of the business extended beyond the paint job in the special edition with a special up-gearing that helps it achieve a slightly faster top-speed as stock.

The bike is number 59 of 150, still carries the limited edition plate and only holds a very respectable 2,655 miles.

Find the full listing here. $2200, Astoria, Queens.

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Image courtesy of The Genuine Scooter Company.

Detroit Examiner has broken the news that the US debut of the new four stroke Genuine Scooter Company Stella has hit another hitch.

The initial import of the new Stellas has been held up for some time by US Customs. This was surprising given that the prototype model had been inspected and passed by the EPA earlier in the year.

Now, it would seem, we have finally gotten to the bottom of the delay. The initial shipment of Stellas from Indian manufacturer LML did not follow the US specifications established by the prototype. No doubt a genuine mix up at the factory given that LML are shipping the new four stroke in a number of guises around the world with subtle changes to meet local guidelines.

Genuine Scooters is now in the process of returning the shipment to India to bring the bikes in line with the EPA’s requirements. A dealer email uncovered by the Detroit Scooter Examiner revealed that the shipment of bikes had…

“… errors that are not consistent with the original specifications provided to the EPA during the original certification process. The original specifications were not carried out properly in the first production run of Stella. The errors are non-mechanical and easily resolved”

The Genuine Scooter Company suffered two violations as a result of the mix up which is particularly unfortunate given the errors were neither safety nor environmentally related.

Unfortunately this means that early adopters who have put down money on the first shipment of Stellas will now have to wait until sometime in the “late fall.” If there’s any good news in all this, it’s that other international incarnations of the four stroke have been arriving in Europe and Asia to very positive reviews.

Credit goes to Scootin’ Old Skool for unearthing the news.

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