Sadly, Vintage Vespa is now becoming an endangered species. Gregg Mitchell, a Vespa renovator, moved to Saigon where he found an abundance of ‘Vintage Vespas’. He stated sadly, “They just don't make them like they used to. They’re all fibreglass and plastic.”
Read the previous piece in this series - Vintage Vespa: A Design That Stands The Test Of Time.
Five years ago, he was scouting for 8 - 10 vintage units a week. Now he only finds 1 or 2, if he’s lucky. Gregg now roams through the Vietnamese countryside looking for the Vintage Vespa. “It’s the unchanging steel core that makes the Vintage Vespa so strong. They still run 50 years after they were manufactured.” He picks up battered old Vespas from rural farmers for a couple of hundred dollars, takes them back to an old warehouse, tears them down and builds them up again beautifully, just like when they was first built in the ‘60s.
Taking an old Vespa to the shop for repairs.
Old Vespas being restored.
A restored Vespa being packed up for shipping.
Today, it feels like things are not built to last. The care, craft and attention to detail has been replaced by the need for massproduction efficiency. Put an old Vespa in a glass case and you’ve have a work of art. Put a new Vespa in the glass case and it feels like just another tradeshow exhibit. One more example of how modern versions of a classic have failed to live up to the reputations of their predecessors. As the old saying goes “They just don’t make them like they used to”.
