My story starts of today when I picked her up like this^
I think she had gone thru Afew people's hands like this without being touched?
A couple of days ago I got in touch with the original owner/ builder about the history and this is what sent me-
Hi
Really pleased to see the scoot after all these years.... a number of my mates sent me a link to the auction but living in the US now was going to be too much of a stretch to get it over and even get it back on the road..... anyway it needs to be in the UK and at rallies.
So I bought it when it was about 18 months old from another guy in Goole as an orange GP which he had bought from AF Rayspeed (I think). It was one of those that had like a dark stains/runs in the original paint. Picked it up on a Friday night for 200 pounds and rode to Morcambe national on the Saturday morning 2-up with a rear shock that was knacked.
So one of my mates bad a blue and silver vreeble GP "Scooter Mania II" and that was part of the inspiration for wanting to do something custom. So the ideas came from a variety of different sources. The name from the George Duke Album, which you already figured out. The style of the lettering came from an 80's sould band called Imagination and the album was called "Body Talk".... if you look up the cover you will see the style and colour. Didn't like the band but loved the font used. The picture idea was just a random thought that I gave to Maca at DTC, I gave him the general idea what I wanted and left it to him. At the time my girlfriend had long blonde hair and some thought it was meant to be her.... this was not the case. So with the Brazilian blonde theme the yellow vreeble was the way to go. Maca and I discussed the shapes and the fogging and the brown's best complimented the yellow. For the carb hole I didn't want a big hole so we decided on several smaller ones, just to be different. Total cost of paintwork 200 pounds..... same cost as the bike.
The engine had stage 4 tune, fresco exhaust and big carb fitted.... nothing too exotic. I couldn't afford all the chrome work at one go so at first most of the internals were factory finish except anything that was going to be a difficult swap out (ie) front folks. See picture bla.jpg. This was first run out for Skegness rally in 1982, Scooter Mania II is in background plus other GP's from my club B52's. If I remember the panels weren't finished so I took it without them.
Think its first rally as a finished scooter was Scarborough, can remember pulling up and virtually getting mobbed with people trying to take pictures. It was very reliable, rode it to IOW, Weston and all the major rally's for a couple of seasons. I didn't really enter it into any shows, was not into that apart from Doncaster Custom Car Show which it took Best Paintwork. I sold in about 85/86 to a lad from Notts Brittania, think he was called Lowey and part of the early VFM setup. Sold it as I had just seen Excile and that as for many had a big influence. Not 100% sure but I think it went for about 700-800 pounds and was in perfect condition. Hope this helps ?
I attached a few pictures.... let me know if you need more info.
Cheers
John
PS left hand panel once came off on way back from Leeds, landed face down on the road.... was very lucky only minor scratches which Dave.... ex DTC and Maca's early partner was able to sort.