Johnny Walklate was in his mid 20s when he moved to Italy, for a lady.

Whereas that relationship didn’t work out, over three years dwelling in Viareggio, on the coast north of Pisa, he met and fell in love with one of many nation’s most interesting exports – scooters.

Each his dad and grandad had owned Lambrettas earlier than he was born, however Johnny’s first style of two wheels got here on a 50cc Vespa ET2 he used to get to and from work, initially as a chef.

“That began my ardour for scooters and studying concerning the historical past,” he says. “It was my first enterprise of freedom – I may go wherever I needed, do something I needed, and I found the love of the older fashions as properly. You used to see them floating about, the outdated Vespas and stuff.

“As a result of you will get a 50cc moped on the market once you’re 14, the roads are filled with scooters. It’s a completely totally different lifestyle in scootering.”

Birthplace of Vespa

By pleased coincidence, Pontedera, the birthplace of Vespa, is a mere 35 miles southeast of Viareggio – and Johnny would commonly trip his scooter right down to the Piaggio museum.

“I’d go and spend a number of hours taking a look at all of the outdated machines and all of the prototypes they’ve bought down there, and go to the totally different exhibitions they placed on through the 12 months,” he says.

However it was Milan’s Lambretta that would actually seize his coronary heart and result in an everlasting fascination with every thing Innocenti, particularly the uncommon, uncommon, or early scooters.

After a interval gathering Lambretta 48 autocycles and the Luna scooter vary, he lastly landed his private Holy Grail – a 1948 Mannequin A, Innocenti’s first ever scooter.

“It was at all times my dream to have a primary mannequin Lambretta,” he says, at his dwelling in Leicestershire, “however I at all times stated I’d should promote every thing else to get one.”

So the 4 autocycles and three Lunas had been moved on, with solely the 1950 Mannequin B purchased a number of years earlier remaining.

Compulsive gathering

“I’ve at all times had a fascination for issues that aren’t as frequent – they sort of catch my consideration,” he says, which additionally extends to an virtually compulsive want to assemble as a lot documentation regarding the scooters and the Innocenti manufacturing unit as potential.

“It’s only a quest for data and my obsessive nature. I get pleasure from searching issues down and looking for one thing new and it actually bought out of hand – it actually did.

“The largest facet of the paperwork assortment is the consumer manuals. My quest was to search out one for each machine that Innocenti ever made for Lambretta, together with the autocycles and three wheelers. There’s simply the one machine to go now, and that’s the primary ever three wheeler they made, the FB mannequin, however they solely made 2,001 machines.

“Only a few of these survive – I do know of 12 on the earth, so the probabilities of discovering a guide are very slim. However by no means say by no means! I do have the elements catalogue for it, which is a bonus.”

After which there’s the Lambretta Body Examine service, born in 2018 in collaboration with Pete Davies, who based the British Lambretta Archive in 2002.

Lambretta body verify service

Utilizing Johnny’s unique manufacturing unit paperwork, the body verify service permits anybody to search out out the construct month of their Lambretta.

“It appeared logical for me to utilise my archive to assist different folks,” he says.

However again to Italy and 2004, and Johnny swapped life within the kitchens for work as a polisher within the boatyards, engaged on the superyachts in-built Viareggio.

It was there that he bought his first Lambretta, a late ‘60s J50 purchased from his boss.

“That’s what set my life on a course of actually getting concerned with Lambrettas,” he says. “You don’t actually see J50s about, as a result of they’re low powered, however they’re beautiful little machines and have a cult following.”

When he returned to the UK in September 2007, each the J50 and Vespa ET2 got here with him.

“Me and my brother went on a 5 and a half day journey within the van to carry again all my belongings,” he remembers. “We drove all the best way there and again and had amusing, ate some good meals and drank some good wine.”

The ET2 was rapidly changed by a model new, 2008 Vespa 50S, which turned his commuter scooter to and from work again in a restaurant kitchen – “there’s a definite lack of boatyards round right here, in the course of the nation!”.

After a few years, throughout which Johnny handed his bike take a look at, the J50 was changed by a Lambretta GP150, sadly written off when an off-duty police officer knocked him off on his method dwelling from work one evening.

Sprucing and restoring

A GP200 adopted, and Johnny used his spare time to shine and restore outdated Lambretta elements.

“I rented a unit and that kind of took off,” he says, “after which I began doing three days every week working for some pals at TheLambro.com, restoring the three wheeler Lambros.”

This led to “choosing journeys” to Italy, and the start of Johnny’s autocycle and Luna assortment.

“We went to a spot on the Adriatic shoreline simply south of Rimini, fetching the three wheelers again,” he says, “and one man had additionally bought a load of outdated scooters in a rooster coop on this kind of builders quarry yard.

“I took some money with me, simply in case there was something low cost going, and I pulled out a little bit Lui (Luna) 50C which turned out to be fairly a singular mannequin due to its color and manufacturing date.

“Within the first month of manufacturing of the Lui vary, they had been solely obtainable in white, however a number of had been performed in an aquamarine blue, and mine was an unique paint orange.

“I’d seen an orange one in a guide as soon as, however this was the primary one which had come to gentle and been present in its unique orange.”

The 50C was quickly joined by a 50CL – fitted with Casa efficiency elements – and a 75S, marketed within the UK because the Vega.

Lambretta 48

Johnny’s quest for Lambrettas seldom seen on the UK’s roads, however that are additionally inexpensive, led him to the comparatively little-known Lambretta 48 vary.

Launched on the Milan Present in 1954, the 48 was a two-stroke, two-speed moped named after its engine measurement.

“On the finish of the day, they’re an inexpensive mannequin,” he says. “I’ve by no means grown up having cash, and transferring round as a lot as I did in my youthful days, I by no means made a house wherever – I used to be at all times pissing cash up the wall renting.

“So it was nice having the chance to drop on a few of these fashions that aren’t essentially going to interrupt the financial institution.”

Johnny’s first 48 was picked up by his Lambro.com colleague Ian close to the border with Croatia.

“He went out to choose up a body we wanted and he stated ‘if there’s something on the best way or the best way again you need choosing up, let me know’,” he says. “I discovered this autocycle on the web, did the deal and Ian picked it up and introduced it again for me. It was one thing ridiculous like €160, not some huge cash.

“It barely ran, had been hand painted with emulsion in some unspecified time in the future, and wasn’t the nicest instance, however what do you anticipate for that sort of cash?”

Three extra autocycles

It appeared cheap to ask why he then purchased three extra…

“Unusual query,” he laughs. “There was an enormous assortment in Italy that Dean Orton, who previously owned Rimini Lambretta Centre, cleared out of northern Italy.

“One was a very nice Lambretta 48 that ended up going to an aged gentleman down in Hastings. He had had it a variety of years and I had a whisper he was considering of letting it go. “We struck a deal and had a weekend away down there to gather it. It was museum high quality and gained me a few awards at reveals. I used to trip that one round and it was actually enjoyable.

“I then discovered a primary sequence 48 within the Rimini space, and only a few of these have survived or are identified to exist. It was in actually tough situation however, once more, it was ridiculously low cost.

“The final one was on one other journey to Italy, from an older gentleman who lived close to the Lambretta manufacturing unit. It had most likely by no means been various kilometres from the manufacturing unit till it got here to me. It nonetheless ran in its unique paint and situation.

“It wasn’t a case of going on the market and looking for lots of these items – you get identified to be right into a sure area of interest, and folks get in contact with you.”

Just a few years in the past, Johnny was within the uncommon place of getting a little bit money to spend, and bought the GP200 to assist fund the acquisition of the 1950 Mannequin B from somebody in Worksop.

Fixation with early Lambrettas

“I’d bought such a fixation with the sooner stuff and thought on the time I’d by no means be capable of afford a Mannequin A,” he says, “So it was the subsequent smartest thing for me, and it’s performed its job, it’s given me numerous enjoyable through the years and nonetheless does.

“That’s most likely the one I’d trip essentially the most once I had the entire assortment, commuting to work, nipping up city, driving across the countryside.

“It’s not the quickest machine, but it surely’s not about that, it’s about having fun with one thing that’s constructed with Forties know-how and engineering and, 70 years on, it’s nonetheless going.”

It was on the Mannequin B that Johnny accomplished his longest trip in recent times, from Manchester to Sheffield and again throughout Snake Cross.

“That was an fascinating trip, and numerous enjoyable,” he says. “We had been all on early mannequin shaft pushed Lambrettas with eight inch wheels. It was an excellent take a look at for the scooter, hill climbing on an outdated machine like that. It was most likely faster strolling!”

Fashions A and B look very totally different to most individuals’s concept of a Lambretta, particularly as Johnny’s B has a interval racing gasoline tank.

“The B attracts numerous curiosity as a result of it’s a mannequin that lots of people haven’t actually seen earlier than, and so they don’t see them on the roads,” he says. “There should not so many within the nation, particularly ones that get used. There are fairly a number of in pristine circumstances that solely ever get wheeled out and brought to reveals, however I’ve at all times preferred to trip and guarantee that every thing I’ve bought runs and is usable.

“Some Sundays I’d make a day of it and I’d go and do 20 miles on one machine, come again, swap machines, do one other 20 miles, and preserve swapping all through the day. By the tip, you’ve performed 100 miles on 5 bikes.”

Packed in like Sardines

With 9 scooters and autocycles crammed into his single storage, Johnny, now 44, admits that issues “rapidly bought out of hand”.

“The logistics of getting them out of the storage after they’re all in there like sardines took some understanding,” he says. “In the event you’re going to trip to work, you needed to kind it out the evening earlier than so that you’re not getting up at 6.30am and getting eight out of the best way.

“There comes a time once you suppose ‘do I need to promote a number of off and get one thing that I really need?’, and that occurred two years in the past once I had an enormous filter.

“After I’d bought all the opposite machines and was simply left with the Mannequin B, I made a decision I used to be going to begin in search of a Mannequin A.”

The Holy Grail was nearby, the primary scooter to come back from the Innocenti manufacturing unit that had beforehand been used to fabricate scaffolding poles.

Ferdinando Innocenti rejected a design for a spar-framed scooter by Corradino D’Ascanio as a result of he needed to supply the scooter’s body from rolled tubing as a substitute, thereby utilising the manufacturing unit’s tooling and experience.

D’Ascanio promptly took his design to Piaggio and the Vespa was born in 1946, a 12 months earlier than Innocenti lastly bought the tube-framed Mannequin A off the bottom.

That includes a 123cc shaft-driven, direct air-cooled engine, the three-speed Mannequin A used tiny seven-inch wheels and had no rear suspension apart from the seat springs – on the entrance, simply two rubber bushes cushioned the forks.

A complete of simply 9,669 had been manufactured within the 12 months from October 1947, earlier than the Mannequin B took over.

Holy Grail Mannequin A in sight

Johnny’s search left him with a selection of three of the “20 or 30” Mannequin As identified to be within the UK.

“One with elements lacking in any person’s attic, and one other that was full however – wanting on the photographs – for what was being requested was not a viable choice,” he says.

“The third choice was this rolling chassis with all its appropriate elements from an aged gentleman referred to as Howard Chambers, who was fairly a famend fellow on the scootering scene within the UK, particularly for the early machines. Sadly, he died in January.

“He took me to one among his lock ups and there it was in all its cheese grater glory. It was all there, and the value was effective, but it surely did want numerous work.”

That work is nearing its finish after almost two years, the scooter again in its unique olive inexperienced paintwork, with just a few electrical work to be accomplished.

“I’m not an knowledgeable on the electrical facet of issues, and I’d moderately simply get another person to do it,” he says, “after which get somebody with mechanical data simply to go over it one ultimate time for me, after which I’ll get it going.

“I’m led to consider they’re superior to the Mannequin B – they’re presupposed to have upgraded to that, however took a number of the energy out a bit. Apparently the A is a lot extra enjoyable, so I sit up for the day I get mine going, this summer time hopefully.”

Mission achieved?

It virtually looks like mission achieved for Johnny – he has the scooter he at all times longed for, and the one he’s arguably had essentially the most enjoyable driving.

So now he plans to deal with filling within the gaps on a group of paperwork valued someplace between £15,000 and £20,000.

“These items have gone up in worth quite a bit in recent times,” he says. “There are much more folks gathering the leaflets and brochures, and they’re commanding increased costs.

“Loads of these items by no means get marketed on the market, they only get exchanged behind closed doorways in gents’s agreements.

“When a group down at Weston-super-Mare was just lately being bought off, there have been a few gems there that I hadn’t bought and I wanted, so I managed to leap in and get what I used to be lacking. 

“The Mannequin A elements catalogue is mega uncommon and set me again £500 only for that one. I wasn’t the one get together in that. I spent one of the best a part of £1,000 on three objects!

“Issues come from all around the world. I’ve bought a Mannequin B consumer guide in English, which is tremendous uncommon – I do know of just one different – and it got here from Maine in America of all locations. It’s even bought the American distributor’s stamp on it from method again then.

The story of Innocenti

“I believe, collectively, the whole thing tells a narrative and tells the historical past of the machines and the corporate as an entire.

“It’s not simply the stuff that I like both, it’s something associated to the manufacturing unit. So I’ve bought workers handbooks that workers would have gotten after they began their job, books they’d give to guests on manufacturing unit excursions, and a very outdated photographic guide of the outdated equipment plant after they first began within the ‘30s in Milan – the primary ever manufacturing unit.

“Plus the story of them designing the machines to make scaffolding tubes and designing the fashionable scaffolding clamp. And all of it pertains to the scooters.

“I believe that studying is an efficient factor, and it tells the historical past. Lots of people can write a guide and put their model of the historical past there, however once you’ve bought precise manufacturing unit paperwork, that’s reality because it occurred.”

In addition to the paperwork, there’s a patented Innocenti scaffolding clamp and a brick from the now disused manufacturing unit on Johnny’s sideboard, stable memorabilia that provides flavour to his assortment of paper artefacts.

Scooter tales is a sequence of articles exploring the lives and experiences of several types of scooter riders and collectors. Extra tales will probably be added within the coming months. Click on on the Scooter Tales class hyperlink to learn extra.