Rising up because the son of a die-hard Teddy Boy, scooters have been a whole thriller to a teenage Shaun Fairhead.

That every one modified when, at 16, he stood and watched the floats drive previous for the 1980 Could Day parade in his dwelling metropolis of Ely.

“In my previous few years at college I used to be into rock and roll like my dad, and had no thought what mods and scooters have been,” he says.

“Then on the very again of all of the floats was a band enjoying, with 20 or 30 scooters using behind. It was the primary time I’d ever seen something like that, and I used to be gobsmacked.

‘I wish to be a mod’

“I mentioned to my mate ‘oh my God, what are they?’ and he mentioned ‘they’re mods’. I appeared and simply mentioned ‘I wish to be a mod’.”

Now 59, Shaun has since owned a whole lot of scooters, and has morphed from the mod of his early scootering days to a dash and circuit racer and Lambretta tuning specialist.

He runs his personal Lambretta engine enterprise, Fairspares, and has plans to compete for Lambretta high velocity information in 2024.

It’s all a far cry from the boy who needed to save up for a yr to purchase his first scooter, a crimson and chrome Vespa SS180, disappointing his dad within the course of.

“He wasn’t too satisfied,” he laughs, paying £200 for the Vespa saved from his part-time, 50p-an-hour job whereas learning woodworking at Wisbech Faculty.

“I discovered how one can experience it, however I used to be clueless about all the things else. I keep in mind the clutch cable went and I put it into Ken Covell’s bikes in Ely. They charged me one thing like 50p for the cable, and £10 for labour, which was some huge cash then – 20 hours half time work for me.”

If he wished to run an outdated scooter, he wanted to learn to restore it himself.

“I purchased a non-running Vespa GS160 for £30, and a Haynes handbook, and stripped it down,” he says. “That was my first introduction to messing with scooters. I didn’t have a clue what I used to be doing, however I discovered how one can put issues again collectively. It was too rotten to revive although, so it ended up in a scrapyard.”

Immersed in scooter scene

All through the early ‘80s, Shaun immersed himself within the burgeoning scooter scene in the course of the so-called ‘mod revival’.

His first scooter rally was at Skegness in September 1981, after one thing of a false begin.

“I went to satisfy everyone on {the marketplace} on the Saturday morning and no one turned up,” he laughs. “I didn’t know, however on the youth membership the Thursday earlier than they’d determined they weren’t going to go. However I used to be there prepared with my sleeping bag, so I simply went by myself.

“I turned up at Skegness and I didn’t know anybody, however as a result of mine was an older Vespa it bought numerous curiosity, and a bunch from the Norwich Broadsmen scooter membership grabbed me and mentioned ‘who’re you with?’ I mentioned I used to be by myself, they usually mentioned ‘dangle round with us’, and that was that. We slept on deck chairs on the seafront.

“That was it, I used to be hooked then. I simply beloved it and I went everywhere in the nation with a bunch of associates from the scooter membership in Ely. There have been six to 10 of us, I’m nonetheless associates with most of them, and most of them nonetheless have scooters.

“I used to be keen to go wherever on my scooter, I didn’t care, as much as Scotland, right down to the south coast, wherever. I keep in mind a bunch of 20 of us went from Ely to Nice Yarmouth, our native rally. There have been just a few lads with Vespa 50s, and I feel it took us eight to 10 hours to do an hour and a half journey as a result of everyone stored breaking down. That was the worst journey on a rally ever.”

With the Vespa and the mod uniform of parka, Fred Perry, and Sta-Prest trousers, Shaun needed to run the gauntlet of bikers within the Cambridgeshire cities and villages round Ely.

Chain-swinging rockers

“In these days you needed to keep away from Soham,” he remembers. “A lot an Ely mod was kicked off into ditches driving by Soham.

“I keep in mind getting chased coming by Southery, close to Downham Market, by two rockers in a automotive swinging a sequence at me out of the window. It was just a few months after I bought my first Vespa, and I simply used to like going for a experience within the countryside – it was freedom, however you needed to be cautious.

“It was a very good time to develop up although – you had punk rockers, skinheads, mods and so on, a variety of youth cultures to select from. It was an excellent time, and a weird time.

“The Lakenheath and Mildenhall skinheads used to come back over to Ely to battle. They’d ring the phone on {the marketplace} and say ‘get all of the mods out, we’re coming over’.

“I keep in mind a rockabilly lad leaping on high of one in all their Transit vans dancing to Gene Vincent or one thing, whereas everybody else was preventing.”

As soon as he’d completed faculty and began work, Shaun had extra money to indulge his ardour for scooters, and bought more and more within the engines.

Fascinated by tuning

“I quickly realised I preferred the tuning aspect greater than the mod aspect,” he says. “Though I beloved the mod aspect of it, I discovered I used to be extra drawn to creating scooters go quicker. I used to be fascinated by it.

“I keep in mind someday there have been just a few of the marginally older scooter lot in Ely, extra scooterists than mods, and two of them turned up with AF Rayspeed S-Kind Lambrettas, with steel flake paint and tuned up 250s with massive open carbs on them.

“They got here up by the city and, in the event that they opened up, they only roared and I used to be like ‘oh my God, that’s what I wish to do – I need a Lambretta that roars’. That basically bought my buzz going for the mechanical and tuning aspect.”

On the time, it was straightforward to select up scooters for the price of an evening within the pub right now, and Shaun discovered it arduous to withstand build up a large assortment.

“I feel at one level I owned about 36 scooters,” he laughs. “They have been stored in a few garages me and some associates rented.

Low cost scooters

“I might get provided them, ‘oh go on then’, since you may decide them up low-cost – £30 to £50. They have been simply hidden in individuals’s sheds and stuff, dad and mom or grandparents had had them and simply put them away.

“Then I’d promote them on and attempt to become profitable, or strip them down for elements to maintain others going. I purchased just a few for simply the quantity plates to promote.

“I had a few TV200s, that are value a fortune now, and I stripped them, offered the bits, scrapped the frames and despatched the log books off as scrap. Only a body now could be value just a few grand, however they weren’t actually wanted within the 80s.

“I began tuning something I had, and as soon as I’d discovered the mechanical aspect then everybody would begin bringing their scooters to me. Somebody would say ‘can you set a 200 equipment, are you able to do a little bit of porting, can we put a much bigger carb on, let’s see what occurs’. And it simply took off from there.”

GP200 survivor

Of all these scooters from the ‘80s, one stays – a 1970 Lambretta GP200 purchased in 1983 that’s at the moment present process restoration.

“That one has all the time been there,” says Shaun, “and it’s bought a little bit of sentimental worth due to that.

“It’s had plenty of adjustments over time, most likely 30 totally different engines in it and all kinds. It was Italian initially, however I lower the body down, so now it’s bought an Indian body. I want I hadn’t executed that, nevertheless it wasn’t wanted in these days.

“I feel I’m going to be buried with that Lambretta. I don’t need anyone else having it!”

Racing appeared a pure development for a person who simply wished to make scooters go quicker – why not take a look at them, and himself, on the observe?

His first foray into competitors was sprinting – quarter mile drag races – in 1993 with a Vespa constructed with assist from Norrie Kerr at Midland Scooter Centre.

Taking over the Italians

“Two Italians came visiting on tuned-up Vespas, and I wished to compete towards them so I intentionally constructed a Vespa,” he says. “It was lower down with drop handlebars, a Yamaha RD exhaust, massive carb, and it had already been ported by Norrie. It ran very well, or I assumed it did.

“However these Italians have been doing 14 second quarter miles, and I used to be nowhere close to, like 18 seconds. Oh my God, I didn’t realise.”

It was an eye-opener and, with household life taking on, Shaun didn’t compete once more for over a decade, as a substitute specializing in customized reveals with a Lambretta TV200 that was ultimately offered to Japan.

“I went to observe some sprinting in about 2006, and I made a decision to have a go once more in 2009,” he says, participating in occasions organised by Straightliners. “There have been fairly just a few tuning retailers on the time, like JB Tuning, AF, Chisel Velocity, they usually all had individuals who determined to have a go at sprinting. They knocked seconds off the instances and the tuning developed – it was a very good, aggressive time for sprinting.”

Shaun competed everywhere in the nation, from Elvington airfield to York, Stratford and North Weald, within the modified avenue class, which needed to seem like a Lambretta however may have light-weight fibreglass panels and leg shields.

“I bought down into the 13 seconds, and received the 2010 avenue class title,” he says, clocking what was then the quickest time on a avenue authorized scooter – 13.99 seconds and 90mph – at Elvington.

Lambretta circuit racing

Quick ahead to 2017, and Shaun swapped straight traces for the twists and turns of circuit racing after watching Dean Orton’s Rimini Lambretta crew in motion. The crew had been put collectively to advertise Casa Efficiency elements.

“That they had an enormous truck, full equipment, and I went to observe – I used to be gobsmacked,” he says. “I assumed ‘are you aware what, I’m at an age now the place I simply wish to have a go’.”

Shaun completed fifth in his first season within the Lambretta Membership manufacturing class, racing at circuits together with Cadwell Park, East Fortune in Scotland, Darley Moor in Derbyshire, Anglesey, and Lydden Hill.

“As a result of I’d executed sprinting, my getaways from the beginning line have been all the time actually good,” he says. “I may get by 4 or 5 individuals at first.”

The next yr, he took benefit of a proposal to purchase a race-prepped Scomadi at a reduction value for a brand new sequence to advertise the scooters.

“I used to be nonetheless a novice, I’d solely executed the one yr, and I assumed it could be probability for me to be taught the circuits with out being as bothered about crashing my Lambretta,” he says.

After a yr, he offered the Scomadi and went again to Lambretta racing, constructing the Group 6 racer that resides in his scrupulously clear and tidy workshop.

Group 6 is an virtually something goes class, permitting for excessive modifications to the engine and body, and Shaun was in his ingredient.

Group 6 scooter racing

“It’s the last word geared class,” he says, “and after I purchased this scooter it was already a racer with an virtually full physique.”

Initially a 1972 Spanish Lambretta Li150, it’s now very a lot stripped again to its naked necessities, and powered by a tuned RB252 air-cooled engine.

Shaun describes the 36hp it dishes out as fairly “delicate”.

“Nevertheless it’s quick – about 105mph on the straights, which is quick sufficient for me at my age,” he provides.

Different modifications embrace a Pipe Design Hornet exhaust, BGM 4-pot disc brakes, steering damper, 40mm carb, BGM shocks all spherical, and Vape ignition equipment.

All of which prices a reasonably penny, as much as £5,000 on the engine and £2,000 on the body, plus one other few thousand for the opposite modifications.

“That’s with me doing the work and getting reductions from sellers,” he says. “What it’s value and the price to do it are very totally different. Over the previous few years it’s value me about £10,000 to construct, however I’d most likely solely get half that if I attempted to promote it.”

So what’s it like doing greater than 100mph on a Lambretta with 10-inch wheels…?

‘The quicker the higher’

“I like it, I completely love going as quick as I can – the quicker the higher,” he smiles. “They bounce and skip about on the corners, and I’ve had many instances after I’ve been going spherical a bend and felt the again flip out.

“However tyres as of late are so good, they get scorching and sticky and grip like mad.”

These scorching and sticky tyres got here to the fore in his greatest outcome up to now, a second-place end when he boldly elected to run dry tyres when everybody else selected wets.

“It had been pouring with rain and everyone was panicking and placing moist tyres on, however I may see a dry patch on the observe forming,” he says. “I waited and waited and we have been referred to as, and I went out on my dry tyres.

“Half approach by I used to be catching everyone up as a result of the total wets will go off for those who haven’t bought a completely moist observe. They get too scorching and lose all management.

“I used to be catching Justin Worth, who’s a very good racer, and the following minute he went off right into a discipline, after which I used to be catching the chief. One other lap or two and I’d have caught him.”

Issues weren’t all the time plain crusing, although, and Shaun has curtailed his circuit racing after a foul accident earlier than a six-hour endurance race within the North East.

“In apply on the Saturday one in all my teammates, Eric Cope, went out on the scooter and did a few laps,” he says. “He got here in and mentioned ‘there’s one thing with this, it’s all clonking on the entrance finish’, so I jumped on it and mentioned ‘I’ll have a go and see what’s incorrect’.

A number of accidents

“On the second nook, I touched the brake and it threw me off. I broke my collar bone, ribs, scapula, and customarily did loads of injury.

“That put me off a bit, so I solely do a pair a yr now in the summertime, when the climate’s good and I do know the observe’s going to be dry. I’m a bit reluctant now that I’m getting older to present it my all on a circuit.

“I’m a bit aggressive and I can say I’m going to watch out, however for those who get on observe in a bunch of racers and also you’re battling then you definitely begin taking possibilities, don’t you?”

Not that he’s given up on the concept of going quick.

“I’m going to return to sprinting, which is a bit safer,” he says, additionally mulling over some high velocity information.

“The corporate I work for does fibreglass work, so I’ve requested them in the event that they’ll make me a streamlined fibreglass full shell to try to get some information for high speeds.

“I’m hoping to do it subsequent yr, most certainly at Elvington, which has an extended runway.”

In addition to the racing, Shaun nonetheless does a few scooter rallies most years, and nonetheless builds engines, tuned after all, for Fairspares prospects.

“Scooters have been my life, and I’ll keep it up doing it till the day I die,” he says.

Scooter tales is a sequence of articles exploring the lives and experiences of scooterists and collectors. Click on on the Scooter Tales class hyperlink to learn extra.