Ola Chicos - Vespa time - VBB 150 - 1962

 The history of this Vespa started in Karari Pakistan 3 weeks after the bombing that cost the life of 15 french engineers.  While I was peacefully sitting next to my chauffeur Ali a nice little vespa drove up the line and stopped next to me.

I asked Ali if Vespa were common in Pakistan and if how much did they cost to which he answered there was a second hand street somewhere in Karachi and that for few hundreds of dollars you could get one.  What the heck, we decided to check it out in the evening.   Most of the bike street in Karachi are mostly chineses bikes but there are quite a few shop with Vespa and also small cubic triumph.   Safety is limited to great extend to sandal, short and tshirt.  Welding and painting is done out on the street and every western is a potential big spender.  We quickly found what I was looking for, a VBB 150cbm and left Ali to negotiate the price of the engine.  I also told Ali to have the scooter painted "paki style".   Ali called me next day to inform me that the Vespa and the painting would run me 150 usd.  Not bad.  

1 month later the Vespa was delivered to my house in Dubai with all the import papers.  I never bothered to register the bloody thing as I drove it around the neighboorhood and to go to the beach.   Two years later, I was transfered to Norway and took the vespa to the local export office to obtain the export certificate.  And there big problem !!!!!!  the chassis number did not match the import certificate.  Hence refusal to give me the export certificate.  I went back to the guy that cleared the scoot two years back and he told me they could not find the chassis so for small backshish he wrote a bogus number and the custom officer let him through.

That did not help me much.  So I left the sooter in Dubai and moved to Norway.  it stayed there for couple years, until I heard someone was moving back to France and shipping his personnal effect onto a 20 foot container.  I had the scoot dismantled got rid of the engine who was on his last leg anyway and sent the scoot as "bar decoration".   I collected the chassis few months later in Aix, and start mounting it.  I found a PX 200 engine on the net in Barcelona and had it delivered to my office in Spain and ship to France.  Tthe scoot was back on the road 4 years after its last ride.