Lambretta Spare Parts

It began not with the roar of an engine, but with the clatter of war-weary Milan rebuilding itself. In 1947, amid the rubble and ration books, Ferdinando Innocenti’s factory stopped making munitions and turned its attention to mobility. The result was the first Lambretta, the Model A — a curious little creature of alloy and optimism that looked like a cross between a bicycle and a dream. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was liberating. For the first time, the average Italian could roll out of the city and feel the breeze of freedom on two wheels.

If Vespa became the darling of the poets and the poster child of Italian chic, Lambretta was the people’s scooter — slightly rougher, a little noisier, and far more likely to have a dent in its side panel. It was the scooter for mechanics, milkmen and dreamers who’d never owned a suit, and it wore that badge proudly. By the early fifties, Innocenti’s tubular-framed D and LD models were clattering through every piazza in Italy. They had more metal than flair, but their reliability made them heroes of the backstreets. You could drop a Lambretta, pick it up, kick it once, and it would forgive you.

Then came the Li and TV series of the late fifties and early sixties, and with them a touch of grace. The lines grew smoother, the engines stronger, and the whole world began to notice. The Li 125 and 150 carried young lovers along the Amalfi coast; the TV 175 whispered of performance, its name — Turismo Veloce — promising a little taste of speed to those who dared. A TV 200 followed, and suddenly the once-humble Lambretta was thundering down motorways, overtaking Fiats and flirting with fame.

By the time the Swinging Sixties found their rhythm, Lambretta had crossed the Channel and embedded itself deep in British youth culture. The Mods adopted it as their badge of rebellion, polishing their SX 200s and Li Specials until they gleamed brighter than their parkas. Seaside towns echoed with the sound of hundreds of buzzing two-strokes, side mirrors glinting in the sun like a cavalry charge of chrome. To own a Lambretta wasn’t simply to have transport — it was to declare allegiance to a way of life.

Back in Milan, the company kept evolving. The GP (or DL) range, styled by Bertone in 1968, gave the scooter a sharper, more muscular shape that still looks defiant half a century later. But the world was changing. Cars were cheaper, wages were higher, and the boom years that had given birth to the scooter were fading. Innocenti shut its doors in 1971, and with it ended Italy’s original Lambretta story.

Yet the name refused to die. Production carried on in India under SIL and API, in Spain under Serveta, even in Argentina and Taiwan. Everywhere the factory lights flickered out, someone else lit a match. Through the seventies and eighties, Lambrettas in various guises — Vijai Super, Jet 200, Lince 200 — kept puttering out of workshops that smelled of oil and determination. It was as if the brand itself couldn’t bear silence.

By the nineties, the world had changed again, and the Lambretta had become a relic, an oily memory in sheds and clubhouses. But unlike most relics, it inspired devotion. Mod revivalists polished and tuned their machines; collectors swapped panels and badges; custom builders gave the old frames impossible paint jobs. A whole cottage industry rose around keeping them alive.

Then, in 2017, something remarkable happened. The name returned — officially this time — under new European guardianship. The V-Special series appeared: V 50, V 125 and V 200, all clothed in steel and styled to nod respectfully to the past without pretending it was still 1964. Modern engines, real metal bodywork, and that same purposeful stance. They didn’t try to compete with the old ones; they simply carried the torch forward.

Now, in the 2020s, the reborn Lambretta range includes the X 300, G 350, and the quietly futuristic Elettra electric model. That same Milanese spirit still hums beneath their paint — practicality mixed with a touch of rebellion. You can see it in the curve of the leg-shield, the stance of the rear panel, the way the front badge still leans into the wind like it’s impatient for tomorrow.

To ride a Lambretta today is to join an unbroken conversation that’s been going for almost eighty years — a dialogue between riders and machines, between style and substance. Each one still speaks the same language of independence, of taking the long way home just because the engine sounds better at half throttle. They’ve survived wars, fashion, bankruptcy, and neglect, yet somehow still roll on, immaculate in their imperfection.

And that’s the thing about a Lambretta: it never really cared what anyone else thought. It wasn’t designed for glamour, though it had plenty. It wasn’t made to be rare, though the good ones are. It was built to move people — literally and figuratively — and it’s still doing exactly that. From Milan to Mumbai, Madrid to Manchester, the name carries the same promise it did in 1947: hop on, kick it once, and go wherever life looks a bit brighter round the next corner.