The classic scooterists club magazine

Lambretta arrives in the UK

The first model to land on UK shores is the LN125, which is built in Taiwan and powered by a 125cc SYM-based engine married into a modern frame made up of a mixture of both fibreglass and metal panelwork (the metal panels are apparently produced in Italy). Access to the spark plug (and other maintenance checking areas) is gained by the removal of the underseat plastic storage bay, which is secured in position by four bolts. The front dual suspension is ‘encased’ to give a modern similarity to how the original Lambretta struts looked. Stopping power is via a single front disk and a drum brake at the rear.

Whilst trying to retain a 60s look, the modern styling gives the scooter a ‘chunky’ look around the handlebars (apparently done like this in order to enclose the brake hydraulics). This ‘chunky’ theme follows through the rest of the design, especially in the areas of the front horncasting and the headlight rim.

With the machine literally straight out of the box and with a suitable battery fitted (there wasn’t one on it when it arrived), we were allowed to take a small test drive around the importers - WK Bikes – premises. This consisted of an initial test of around a half-mile drive in total – not enough to carry out a full test review, but just enough to give us our first impressions.

The acceleration seemed quite brisk over our short journey and the suspension felt adequate without too much bouncing around under these less-than-perfect test conditions. The front disk brake felt quite responsive and bit reasonably well – unlike the back drum which didn’t seem to be very effective at all. That said, it must be remembered that this scooter was straight out of the box with no PDI and less than 5 kilometres on the clock, so we’ll not make any definitive judgements until a full road test can be carried out.

How will this Lambretta be received? Well, only time will tell. Lambretta purists may take some convincing over some of the bodywork styling and a much larger capacity engine of 250/300cc would also make this bike more attractive; it would also make more of a challenge to Piaggio’s dominance of the mid-range auto market, currently held by their Vespa GTS range.

Anyway for now the UK will get the LN 125 version, which will be followed later this year by the LN150. Then in early 2012, there will be a new version called the LS, which will be available in 50cc and 125cc twin-seated variants. Prices will start at around £3300.

Email lambretta@wkbikes.com for more information on the Lambretta range. There is a full English section on the Lambretta factory website at www.lambrettamotorcycles.com and dealer listings and news will be added over the coming weeks.

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