ACMA Vespa With Street Art

Every time I see Sean Robinson at an event he has ridden a different scooter there, and this year’s Modrapheniacs rally was no exception. After the rally he headed to his local skate park to take some photos with the colourful street art there. I loved the photos so much that Sean kindly said I could use them and also shared the story of how he breathed new life into a 60 year old scooter!

ACMA stands for Ateliers de Construction de Motocycles et d’Automobiles and was a factory near Dijon in France which produced this style of Vespa under license from Piaggio in the 1950s and early 60s.

They manufactured hundreds of thousands of these scooters, and there’s some info on Wikipedia here if you want to find out a little more about them, although details are scant.

The Scooterhelp website has some really helpful information about the engines which powered the ACMA Vespas, which you can read about here.

Sean bought this particular frame from a mate with the modern SIP PX engine adaptor plates for £400. The original forks were seized in the frame and cut off just above the suspension mounts so were totally useless. It only had the panels, fuel tank and mudguard, that was all.

Sean built it in less than a month with stuff he had in the garage (in typical Garagista style), including fitting a PX Malossi 166 engine with an ancient JL expansion pipe. He had to cut the carb box away and trim a couple of inches from the frame above the carb so it fitted and cleared the now exposed standard 20/20 carb.

Next he fitted some MK1 PX forks with a YSS Piaggio Zip moped adjustable front shock. He had to cut the mudguard to get it to fit around the PX forks, and fitted a Sebac rear shock. The gear change and throttle are from eBay. A homemade wiring loom and the electrics are all in the old carburettor housing. The seat is a modified lambretta rear saddle. A Lambretta Series 2 Sprint rack on the back follows the curve of that lovely shaped rear and a later Sprint spare wheel carrier sits inside the legshields with a 3 litre Seagull outboard motor fuel tank as a reserve tank.

The centre stand is original and extended by two inches, and the side stand is a PX one also extended. As for the handlebar setup, it comprises of an old BMX headstock with a set of quad bike bars I had hanging up in the garage, but I will probably swap them out for a slightly flatter set at some point.

We took it out to Sandford for its first two-up run and it behaved really well, except that with a pillion on the back it caught the fuel filter cover and loosened it, hence the Sebac rear shock. The only job left to do is a little bit of fettling on the fuel supply and adding a brake light as the original bike never had one.
It’s all the original paint, and the dents and rust are staying. The only thing Sean has done is a coat of red oxide primer on the floorboards, which will also have some period old runners added at some point that a mate took off his ACMA to fit new ones on.

I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a great scooter, and amazing that Sean has brought it back to life. What’s more, the photos in the skate park at Fleetsbridge in Poole set it off perfectly. I usually like to credit the artists but I can’t find out anything about these pieces unfortunately.

More scooters and street art

If you’ve enjoyed these photos then you may also enjoy reading these posts :
– Scooters and street art in Brighton
– My street art scooter
– More scooters and street art in Brighton

Rally Guides

Rally Guides
If you’re planning your scootering calendar for 2021 then check out my 2021 Rally Guide to get the best choice of accommodation.

For an in-depth guide to the biggest scooter rally in the world, here is a link to my Isle of Wight rally guide.