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Customers scooters

Rather like the "readers wives" section of certain publications, this section is devoted to pictures of scooters belonging to MB Developments customers.
It is your chance for fame on the world wide web!!
If you want to feature your scooter here then please email pictures and text to the address at the bottom of the page.
If you are selling your scooter you can put it up here too for free (well maybe a pint at the next parts fair), the only criteria is that it has MBD parts/engine on it!

When emailing pictures, please send them in jpg format at 72dpi, with your image 600 pixels wide. This helps us put your pictures up as easily as possible.

Now that we have the digital camera, don't be surprised if we take photos of your scooter if you visit us at the workshop. Pictures of our products on scooters look better than sterile photos of things on plain backgrounds.

Ron Palmer of Morecambe, Lancashire sent us these pictures of his lovely GP TS1.

As you can see Ron has got a TS1 engine with our Dellorto flatslide carb kit.
The lovely paintwork on his scooter is complemented by all our remade stainless steel engine parts. Not only do they look nice, they fit and work and being stainless they will keep their finish.

Ron has truly used us as his "one stop scooter shop" and it is nice to see all our parts on such a nice scooter. This picture shows his devtour exhaust in situ.

This picture illustrates the way the devtour exhaust fits.

Dean O'Brien has had a couple of tuned barrels from us and is waiting for the first of the new batch of dealer special scooters from MB Developments.
This is an original GP200 electronic he picked up.
As you can see it has been done very tastefully and falls into the "street sleeper" category.

Dean has fitted an MBD Stage 2 TS1 top end, along with our carbon kevlar engine cowls, rear mudguard, rear mudflap.
As well as this it has the advance/retard ignition system and a polished crankcase side and all the "usual" MB stuff like chain slipper, cable adjuster block etc.
Please note the tank is not from us, it's from Dean Orton at Rimini Lambretta Centre.

In Dean's words "Performance is out of this world" - all we can see is "Thanks Dean but wait until you pick up your dealer special!!".

Long time MB friend and customer Wayne "Max" Bygraves, tinkering with his scooter outside Unit 31.
Note Marks old SX150 runaround by the van.
Max IS Mr Lambretta as far as we're concerned, he is always doing one up and is a real trainspotter.
He is also a lovely bloke and his restorations always win prizes so he must be doing something right!

Another well known custom scooter with an MB engine - "kiss me where the sun don't shine", owned by Glyn Dove of Colchester.
We've not heard from Glyn in a while but Ian use to keep bumping into him at West Ham games.

A famous custom Vespa "stop on sight 2" owned by John Woods.
This scooter had an MB Suzuki/Malossi 220 top end and is widely regarded as one of the fastest Vespas around.

"The Babe", built by Max.
A true labour of love.
This scooter has been sold on a couple of times and now lives in Dorset with Darrell Milnes, another MB friend/customer.

Mike Burkes is a customer of our who lives in Texas.
After a lot of emails last year, Mike sent us his 200cc engine for us to turn into a fast road TS1 200 engine.

After he'd run his new engine in, one of his first long runs was this charity ride-out through the East Texas countryside.
Mike was riding the only scooter there and there were a load of Harley riders poking fun at him about his GP.

Mike got the last laugh as, although it wasn't a race, he was one of the first to finish the ride-out, having left a few Harleys chewing on his smoke!
A lot of the Harley riders came up to Mike after the ride-out and expressed their admiration.

Since then, Mikes bike riding friends have renamed his GP "The Harley Intimidator".
Mike is building another GP, this one with a stage 4 200cc factory kit.
He is also fitting and advance retard kit to his TS1.

Laurence Dalton is a very nice man and a long standing MB customer.
He believes in getting what you pay for.
He has had several barrels and engines done by MB Developments in the past.
He pays with all these engines with the royalties he recieves from his guest appearance in the film "Silver dream racer".

This engine we did for Laurence is a complete top of the range touring spec 230cc engine with Yamaha rod, jetski piston, ceramic plate, road tune, close ratio gearbox and six plate clutch.
22hp with the MBD Dev-tour and a 35mm TMX Mikuni carb.
It has quite a low exhaust port (178 degrees) so there is more scope for more tuning.
But in Loz's words "It's absolutely perfect and sits at 70 all day and pulls from tickover to flat out".
A very happy customer!

This scooter belongs to Simon Compton, another long time friend and customer of MB Developments.
It is basically a touring scooter, Simon and his wife Sue do a lot of scooter rallies and they wanted to travel in style at a reasonable speed.
Sue runs a chain of hairdressers in Bradford and the scooter is apparently named "Agent Orange" in honour of the number of Blue, Purple and Orange rinses that Sue has done in her career.

A view of the front end showing the MBD Kawasaki damper kit and the carbon fibre look tax disc holder.

All the trick MBD bits, not just for show but to improve the scooter in many ways - Carbon Kevlar head and flywheel cowls, twin tank conversion, Stainless rear hub nut.

The great looking, very effective MBD outboard disc hub.
Designed to stop the scooter well whether it's at the end of a sprint run like Chris Sturgess's GP below or two-up with all the bags on the back on the way to a rally like this scooter of Simon's.

The full MBD hydraulic set-up on Simons' scooter. Grimeca master cylinder, polished housing, TZR grips, Polished bar ends. They all look the part and do what they are supposed to, like all MBD products.

View of left hand side panel, showing MBD remade polished side panel grills.
It doesn't show up in the photo but this scooter is bright bright orange with dark blue detailing.
Simon brought his painted headset in for a bit of work to be done to it and Ian went "Uurrgh Orange, too bright" but in the context of a built finished scooter it looks absolutely great.

Close up of a polished grill.
Most people don't believe this isn't chromed but it IS just polished alloy.
The finish on polished alloy lasts better than chrome and takes less looking after.

Rear view of the bike showing the MBD Dev-tour exhaust.
Simon had brought the scooter to us for Mark to road-test it. Mark took the scooter out for a spin, came back and adjuested the air screw and the bike was spot on. A reliable engine set up right on the bench. Mild road/touring tune and the Dev tour pipe lets the bike "pull like a train" according to Mark.

View of the toolbox with a section of free advertising (Thanks Simon!!).
Sue let Simon build the scooter on the dining room table.
Ian and Mark were both amazed that Sue had let him do it.
We warned him that something must be up.
Sure enough when Simon came and showed us pictures of the finished scooter he also had pictures of the cute puppy that Sue had bought herself!!
Simon isn't mad about dogs but couldn't really argue!!

This SX200 TS1 retro street racer belongs to Shiro Noda of Japan. Shiro has a shop called Lambrettability and stocks many MBD parts.
Shiro often visits the UK to hunt for parts and the last time he came we took him out for a meal in Doncaster.
This meal soon degenerated into a pub crawl around Doncaster and we ended in a tacky nightclub.
Shiro got jumped on and kissed by a very drunk "lady" and ended up falling asleep on a table in the club.
Everytime he emails us he asks when he can come out in Doncaster again!!

When Shiro sent us these pictures we though there we two scooters but it's just that he swapped the seat over.
You can see some MBD parts on his scooter - the outboard hydraulic hub and handlebar parts

Side view of Shiro's very nice looking SX racer.
That seat looks distinctly uncomfortable.
Shiro isn't the tallest man in the world and we wonder if he can actually ride the scooter with that seat on it.

Close up of all the MBD hydraulic handlebar parts.
With the Grimeca master cylinder and the standard rubber grip you could believe that you were looking at a 60's conversion that Innocenti did.

Back view of Shiro's scooter.
With Shiro's typical Japanese attention to detail he has made a very tidy scooter indeed. Much better than Ian's SX200 project which is currently matt black, stuck in the garage and going nowhere!!

This GP belongs to Chris Sturgess who has been an MBD customer and friend for many years.
It has many MBD parts fitted to it.

The bike has more trick parts than Mr Trick from the planet trick.
Chris has had some of the parts gold plated.

The superlight carbon fibre legshields look super nice but took a lot of weight off the front of the scooter. This, along with the power the scooter puts out made the bike wheelie very easily.

Now that is showing off Chris! It is a genuine 250 (well 245).

This conversion was first done in 1985 by Mark. It is still used today and is very popular and practical. It gives a better pulling leverage on the clutch cable and plates making life easier. Fitting the MBD TZR grips and alloy bar ends finishes off the headset nicely. Practical and usable like all MBD products.

MBD fitted and painted twin petrol tank conversion. Lets you go further between petrol stops (important one tuned bikes like Chris's). Gives you a capacity of about 14 litres. Note the large pipe at the bottom for fuel, small one at top to flow air between tanks to prevent airlocks.

MBD TS1 GP horncast badge. Not a one off, it's a production item normally available in Chromed brass, a quality well fitting item.

Krober-Pitsch, a very accurate analogue electronic rev counter. Works on Vespas too.

The MBD outboard disc conversion totally finished off and fitted to Chris's well looked after scooter - how they should be. MBD engineering doesn't look out of place, practical and good looking. Fits in with the original lines.

Super light and strong, the MBD carbon kevlar cowls. You can see how Chris solved the wheelie problem, Mark moved the engine back a few inches which made all the difference to the handling.

Chris at Elvington, getting ready to go sprinting.

Does Chris realise there are bikers sneaking up behind him?

Chris gets bored and starts racing ambulances!
Not really, this was just before he lets the revs off and let the clutch out slowly for one of the slowest sprint launches Mark had seen.

Just goes to show that scooter sprinting isn't as easy as you might think!

These photos show our Dev-tour pipe fitted to Dec Lee's scooter.

He has a stage 2 road tuned TS1. This photo was taken just prior to a road test.

The exhaust does look low - beware speed bumps! But try and ground it going round corners - it's very hard to do.

TV175 series 2 belonging to Paul Wood from Wakefield.

This bike uses many MBD stainless fasteners.
The engine was upgraded with an MBD GP race crank, electronic ignition, Stage 4 175 conversion, MB Clubman exhaust, nylon control cables and 25mm carb kit.
Paul came to have his jetting checked and Mark found it was spot on.
A very nice scooter to ride and look at, well done Woody!

Polished stainless steel 12mm dome nuts showing the quality of the finish next to the chromed links.

MBD remade quality chromed brass "Lambretta" and "TV175" badges.

Two views of the MBD 25mm 150/175 Dellorto carb kit, fully fitted and working on a stage 4 175 conversion.

As you can see it doesn't look out of place compared to a standard set-up.
Mark road tested the bike bike to find the jetting perfectly set up, as sold over the counter.

Please E-mail us with any questions or comments.

	Ron Palmer of Morecambe, Lancashire sent us these pictures of his lovely GP TS1.
	As you can see Ron has got a TS1 engine with our Dellorto flatslide carb kit. The lovely paintwork on his scooter is complemented by all our remade stainless steel engine parts. Not only do they look nice, they fit and work and being stainless they will keep their finish.
	Ron has truly used us as his "one stop scooter shop" and it is nice to see all our parts on such a nice scooter. This picture shows his devtour exhaust in situ.
	This picture illustrates the way the devtour exhaust fits.
	Dean O'Brien has had a couple of tuned barrels from us and is waiting for the first of the new batch of dealer special scooters from MB Developments. This is an original GP200 electronic he picked up. As you can see it has been done very tastefully and falls into the "street sleeper" category.
	Dean has fitted an MBD Stage 2 TS1 top end, along with our carbon kevlar engine cowls, rear mudguard, rear mudflap. As well as this it has the advance/retard ignition system and a polished crankcase side and all the "usual" MB stuff like chain slipper, cable adjuster block etc. Please note the tank is not from us, it's from Dean Orton at Rimini Lambretta Centre.
	In Dean's words "Performance is out of this world" - all we can see is "Thanks Dean but wait until you pick up your dealer special!!".
	Long time MB friend and customer Wayne "Max" Bygraves, tinkering with his scooter outside Unit 31. Note Marks old SX150 runaround by the van. Max IS Mr Lambretta as far as we're concerned, he is always doing one up and is a real trainspotter. He is also a lovely bloke and his restorations always win prizes so he must be doing something right!
	Another well known custom scooter with an MB engine - "kiss me where the sun don't shine", owned by Glyn Dove of Colchester. We've not heard from Glyn in a while but Ian use to keep bumping into him at West Ham games.
	A famous custom Vespa "stop on sight 2" owned by John Woods. This scooter had an MB Suzuki/Malossi 220 top end and is widely regarded as one of the fastest Vespas around.
	"The Babe", built by Max. A true labour of love. This scooter has been sold on a couple of times and now lives in Dorset with Darrell Milnes, another MB friend/customer.
	Mike Burkes is a customer of our who lives in Texas. After a lot of emails last year, Mike sent us his 200cc engine for us to turn into a fast road TS1 200 engine.
	After he'd run his new engine in, one of his first long runs was this charity ride-out through the East Texas countryside. Mike was riding the only scooter there and there were a load of Harley riders poking fun at him about his GP.
	Mike got the last laugh as, although it wasn't a race, he was one of the first to finish the ride-out, having left a few Harleys chewing on his smoke! A lot of the Harley riders came up to Mike after the ride-out and expressed their admiration.
	Since then, Mikes bike riding friends have renamed his GP "The Harley Intimidator". Mike is building another GP, this one with a stage 4 200cc factory kit. He is also fitting and advance retard kit to his TS1.
	Laurence Dalton is a very nice man and a long standing MB customer. He believes in getting what you pay for. He has had several barrels and engines done by MB Developments in the past. He pays with all these engines with the royalties he recieves from his guest appearance in the film "Silver dream racer".
	This engine we did for Laurence is a complete top of the range touring spec 230cc engine with Yamaha rod, jetski piston, ceramic plate, road tune, close ratio gearbox and six plate clutch. 22hp with the MBD Dev-tour and a 35mm TMX Mikuni carb. It has quite a low exhaust port (178 degrees) so there is more scope for more tuning. But in Loz's words "It's absolutely perfect and sits at 70 all day and pulls from tickover to flat out". A very happy customer!
	This scooter belongs to Simon Compton, another long time friend and customer of MB Developments. It is basically a touring scooter, Simon and his wife Sue do a lot of scooter rallies and they wanted to travel in style at a reasonable speed. Sue runs a chain of hairdressers in Bradford and the scooter is apparently named "Agent Orange" in honour of the number of Blue, Purple and Orange rinses that Sue has done in her career.
	A view of the front end showing the MBD Kawasaki damper kit and the carbon fibre look tax disc holder.
	All the trick MBD bits, not just for show but to improve the scooter in many ways - Carbon Kevlar head and flywheel cowls, twin tank conversion, Stainless rear hub nut.
	The great looking, very effective MBD outboard disc hub. Designed to stop the scooter well whether it's at the end of a sprint run like Chris Sturgess's GP below or two-up with all the bags on the back on the way to a rally like this scooter of Simon's.
	The full MBD hydraulic set-up on Simons' scooter. Grimeca master cylinder, polished housing, TZR grips, Polished bar ends. They all look the part and do what they are supposed to, like all MBD products.
	View of left hand side panel, showing MBD remade polished side panel grills. It doesn't show up in the photo but this scooter is bright bright orange with dark blue detailing. Simon brought his painted headset in for a bit of work to be done to it and Ian went "Uurrgh Orange, too bright" but in the context of a built finished scooter it looks absolutely great.
	Close up of a polished grill. Most people don't believe this isn't chromed but it IS just polished alloy. The finish on polished alloy lasts better than chrome and takes less looking after.
	Rear view of the bike showing the MBD Dev-tour exhaust. Simon had brought the scooter to us for Mark to road-test it. Mark took the scooter out for a spin, came back and adjuested the air screw and the bike was spot on. A reliable engine set up right on the bench. Mild road/touring tune and the Dev tour pipe lets the bike "pull like a train" according to Mark.
	View of the toolbox with a section of free advertising (Thanks Simon!!). Sue let Simon build the scooter on the dining room table. Ian and Mark were both amazed that Sue had let him do it. We warned him that something must be up. Sure enough when Simon came and showed us pictures of the finished scooter he also had pictures of the cute puppy that Sue had bought herself!! Simon isn't mad about dogs but couldn't really argue!!
	This SX200 TS1 retro street racer belongs to Shiro Noda of Japan. Shiro has a shop called Lambrettability and stocks many MBD parts. Shiro often visits the UK to hunt for parts and the last time he came we took him out for a meal in Doncaster. This meal soon degenerated into a pub crawl around Doncaster and we ended in a tacky nightclub. Shiro got jumped on and kissed by a very drunk "lady" and ended up falling asleep on a table in the club. Everytime he emails us he asks when he can come out in Doncaster again!!
	When Shiro sent us these pictures we though there we two scooters but it's just that he swapped the seat over. You can see some MBD parts on his scooter - the outboard hydraulic hub and handlebar parts
	Side view of Shiro's very nice looking SX racer. That seat looks distinctly uncomfortable. Shiro isn't the tallest man in the world and we wonder if he can actually ride the scooter with that seat on it.
	Close up of all the MBD hydraulic handlebar parts. With the Grimeca master cylinder and the standard rubber grip you could believe that you were looking at a 60's conversion that Innocenti did.
	Back view of Shiro's scooter. With Shiro's typical Japanese attention to detail he has made a very tidy scooter indeed. Much better than Ian's SX200 project which is currently matt black, stuck in the garage and going nowhere!!
	This GP belongs to Chris Sturgess who has been an MBD customer and friend for many years. It has many MBD parts fitted to it.
	The bike has more trick parts than Mr Trick from the planet trick. Chris has had some of the parts gold plated.
	The superlight carbon fibre legshields look super nice but took a lot of weight off the front of the scooter. This, along with the power the scooter puts out made the bike wheelie very easily.
	Now that is showing off Chris! It is a genuine 250 (well 245).
	This conversion was first done in 1985 by Mark. It is still used today and is very popular and practical. It gives a better pulling leverage on the clutch cable and plates making life easier. Fitting the MBD TZR grips and alloy bar ends finishes off the headset nicely. Practical and usable like all MBD products.
	MBD fitted and painted twin petrol tank conversion. Lets you go further between petrol stops (important one tuned bikes like Chris's). Gives you a capacity of about 14 litres. Note the large pipe at the bottom for fuel, small one at top to flow air between tanks to prevent airlocks.
	MBD TS1 GP horncast badge. Not a one off, it's a production item normally available in Chromed brass, a quality well fitting item.
	Krober-Pitsch, a very accurate analogue electronic rev counter. Works on Vespas too.
	The MBD outboard disc conversion totally finished off and fitted to Chris's well looked after scooter - how they should be. MBD engineering doesn't look out of place, practical and good looking. Fits in with the original lines.
	Super light and strong, the MBD carbon kevlar cowls. You can see how Chris solved the wheelie problem, Mark moved the engine back a few inches which made all the difference to the handling.
	Chris at Elvington, getting ready to go sprinting.
	Does Chris realise there are bikers sneaking up behind him?
	Chris gets bored and starts racing ambulances! Not really, this was just before he lets the revs off and let the clutch out slowly for one of the slowest sprint launches Mark had seen.
	Just goes to show that scooter sprinting isn't as easy as you might think!
	These photos show our Dev-tour pipe fitted to Dec Lee's scooter.
	He has a stage 2 road tuned TS1. This photo was taken just prior to a road test.
	The exhaust does look low - beware speed bumps! But try and ground it going round corners - it's very hard to do.
	TV175 series 2 belonging to Paul Wood from Wakefield.
	This bike uses many MBD stainless fasteners. The engine was upgraded with an MBD GP race crank, electronic ignition, Stage 4 175 conversion, MB Clubman exhaust, nylon control cables and 25mm carb kit. Paul came to have his jetting checked and Mark found it was spot on. A very nice scooter to ride and look at, well done Woody!
	Polished stainless steel 12mm dome nuts showing the quality of the finish next to the chromed links.
	MBD remade quality chromed brass "Lambretta" and "TV175" badges.
	Two views of the MBD 25mm 150/175 Dellorto carb kit, fully fitted and working on a stage 4 175 conversion.
	As you can see it doesn't look out of place compared to a standard set-up. Mark road tested the bike bike to find the jetting perfectly set up, as sold over the counter.