Anyone know about classic Vespas?

[Black Sheep]

Been joking for a while to the wife that when I've got my full license I'm going to get a 50's looking bike and when asked where I'd keep it pointed out it would fit where the current bike lives on our patio. When planning the re-building of said patio I joked "and here's space for your vespa"

the other night she turned round to me and said she fancies one.
so, first thing is to get her to take her CBT on a geared bike, that way she retains the choice of geared or twist n go, also we then know how she feels about actually being on the road on a motorised two wheeler.

but, we know very little about classic vespas, we'd be looking at a 125cc to cope with the hills around here etc, and I know a bit about looking after two stroke engines. What I don't know is do all older vespas have the gears on the handlebars?
how easy are parts to get for older vespas etc?

Thanks

 

[david1701]

I very nearly ended up doing one up a while back for someone (bullet dodged as it was literally falling apart) but when I looked into it there was a fair community going with manuals available and lots of parts. Probs model specific I think so might be worth hitting up some vespa forums?

 

[Diggs]

I've got a '95 T5.It's SORNed in the garage at the moment (incase my legs give out) There was a lot of confusion even at the time but I understood it to be slightly more powerful than the PX that came after it in that it you could take your test and after a couple of years automatically upgraded to a full license (that may have changed since then). Apart from the indicators, it was pretty much the classic shape. Even back then the classics were going for silly money. Don't recall ever having seen anything other than twist gears

 

[Black Sheep]

so the gear options are auto (twist n go) or gears on the bars then.

I have no idea about the different models and struggled to find much info out there on the web!