I've always had a soft spot for the LD and its old fashioned styling, but I've never considered owning one due to the shaft driven engine and its underwhelming power. But when I saw the photo that the owner sent me though, I was smitten. Along with that, the timing was right and I was able to hand over the required money.
Going by the district registration letter T, it hails from the Tarragona area, near Barcelona. I contacted Jaime Supereibar, to see if we could pinpoint where the scooter came from originally, closer than the province.
Sadly, no luck there but looking closer at another photo I saw the shadow of an old sticker. I wondered if this was a town name sticker. The letters L.E P or R. ? D and A could be made out, and playing around on Google, I found a town called Lerida in the correct area. Google Maps kept sending me to another to another town called Lleida, which was puzzling, but then with further investigation, I discovered that Lerida is the Catalan name for the same town, Lleida being the Spanish version, and I'm thinking that she either came from there originally or spent some time there.
She runs and handily comes with a V5. First jobs will be to order a number plate from Tippers and bring the engine a bit more up to date.
In the meantime, out with the T-Cut and elbow grease to freshen the peppermint green paintwork up. My girlfriend immediately named the scooter Minty on seeing the colour, I resisted but finally gave in
and her full name is now Minty the Imperial.
I cleaned the panel on the right this afternoon, which brightened it up nicely, and I would be interested to hear any tips or advice on how to preserve the paintwork as it is, it being far too nice to restore.
It is mostly original but in need of some tlc, and as I trundled along the marina road on it where I live, I imagined an Eibar factory worker and then the first owner, somewhere in Spain, sitting on the same seat holding the same handlebar grips.
I really like the complete contrast to my main scooter Solid Air, and I'm looking forward to many miles on Minty now too
