“I remember reading an interview with Tony Brancato, a Vespa mechanic in Meichhardt, the heart of Sidney’s little Italy, who said that men who drove big, loud motorccycles were just trying to prove their manhood. ‘Vespa riders’, he said, ‘are content with what they have and know how to use it.’ And discerning women knew that, he claimes.(227)
Elsewhere 'Scooter Trash' - hard-core enthusiasts who rode and repaired their own bikes - were having a good old moan about yuppies buying all the well-restored Vespas as retro accessories. (17).
The idea to ride around Italy on a Vespa had first come to me as a teenager. It was a wet Sunday afternoon and I was watching TV. Weekend television in the seventies in Australia usually meant a Jerry Lewis movie or, if you were really unlucky, the twenty-fifth rerun of an Abbott and Costello flick. But that day some inspired soul at TCN 9 decided to show an old black and white Italian movie starring Sophia Loren.To this day I can't recall which movie it was. I have zero recall of the plot and couldn't tell you for the life of me which other actors were in it. But I do remember with startling clarity that it involved Sophia riding a Vespa around the cobbled streets of a tiny Italian village, and that the grainy image stirred something in me. There, on the screen of our battered Grundig, I saw the epitome of style, sophistication and dropdead gorgeousness. I also realised with a Neanderthal teenage 'huh!' that Sophia Loren wasn't too bad, either.I kept an eye out for Italian movies from that moment on. Whether it was a home-grown classic, such as La Dolce Vita, or one of the Hollywood variety, such as Roman Holiday, there seemed to be one incontrovertible truth: all a guy had to do to look cool was jump on a Vespa and buzz down to a café, a beach or glamorous nightclub. No matter the time of day or night, there would always be a clutch of beautiful women with large,dangerously pointy breasts waiting to flirt with him. And once he threw his leg over a Vespa, even with a three-day growth and crumpled suit he was nonchalant style personified. To a young guy still wearing flannelette shirts and ugh boots in the western suburbs of Sydney it was a heady revelation indeed.So it became my dream to go to Italy and buy a Vespa - an older one, with saddle seats and a little too much chrome. I'd ride around the countryside drinkingespresso and flirting with women with curvaceous figures and dark, burning eyes. I'd the live la dolce vita, the sweet life, like Marcello Mastroianni, in a sharp suit and Ray Bans. And, naturally, I would look - and be - exceedingly cool.It remained just a dream through my teens and my twenties, when getting a degree and a job became my main priority. And in my thirties, too, although the sight of Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon on a Vespa in The Talented Mr Ripley did have me contemplating the idea of chucking it all in and running away to Italy for a couple of weeks.(14-15)
“Just as our conversation – and the spumante – was in danger of drying up, the manager’s wife looked me in the eye and asked me if I had given my Vespa a name.The thought havd never crossed my mind. I’ve never been one for naming vehicles. My mum is. She names her cars before the registration papers have been transferred. She had Buttercup, the yellow Toyota Corona, stationwagon, and Morrie the Magna, and her current car is Connie the Cresida. But I have never been motivated to give any of my vehicles a name. It was always the Datsun or the Suzuki, mostly with an expletive-riddled prefix added. I had never dignified a vehicle that I owned with a name.‘You should call her Sophia,’ the manager’s wife said. ‘When I was a gril I called my Vespa Sophia after Sophia Loren. She was my high-spirited friend, making me do things I was otherwise too timid to do’.I thought about it, and although I was opening myself up to ribbing from mum after all the grief I gave her about naming her vehicles, I agreed. After all, it was the old black and white movies of Sophia Loren that had inspired me to do this trip in the first place.‘For luck, with your journey,’ the manager’s wife said raising her glass.We all clinked glasses, and I hesitated befor taking a sip. ‘To Sophia,’ I said.‘To Sophia’, they replied with gusto. (p.76-77)
Two months ago today I picked up my new Vespa, a 125 S Sport that has been christened Greystoke.
You may remember things didn’t start off too well. The oil light came on and wouldn’t go off, a problem that was traced to a dodgy wire shorting on the frame. I think I predicted at the time that the side view mirrors would start swinging like a gate, and indeed, that has come to pass.
(…)
The main reason I love it is because it puts a smile on my face every time I ride it.
Update: Greystoke is no longer with us. Less than a week after writing this post, a guy did a u-turn in front of me and I ploughed into the side of his van. Greystoke was written off, I ended up in hospital getting my head scanned. And I can’t replace him until everything is sorted out in court.`
Those of you who have read Vroom with a View may remember that I spent a little time at the youth hostel overlooking Lake Como at Menaggio.(…) I got an email from the new manager, Davide, the other day. I say new, but he has been manager since 2010. He tells me he still gets visitors turning up after reading about the place in my book. He also told me he is a Vespista. And not just any old Vespista. A pretty hardcore one who rode his scooter from Milan to Istanbul. You can read about his adventures in this online article:
It’s a problem I still face. My last book was about buying an old Vespa in Italy and riding it from Milan to Rome. I had a fantastic scene where I go and visit an old Vespa mechanic in Sydney. He has a great workshop with old posters, little old Italian guys hanging around a beat up coffee machine. But I couldn’t use it without slowing down the whole narrative. So I had to cut it free. It’s like movies. A lot of scenes end up on the cutting floor. A boring all day bus journey can be easily pared down to ‘By evening we were in Esfahan …’
