Scooters and Mopeds
The Scooters and Mopeds website will help you to find the Scooter or Moped you are looking for, at a fantastic price! We have hundreds of new and used Scooters and Mopeds to choose from. By using the index on the left, you can browse all the Mopeds for Sale and all the Scooters for Sale or you may search by brand. You may also find the search box at the top of the page useful. The inventory changes daily so please bookmark our store and check back regularly.
Scooters, in some shape or form, have been around since the turn of the century. Germany, France, America, Italy, the UK and Japan have all played their part in the development of this most iconic form of transport.
In the UK they have come to be associated with the Mods of the early 60s. Along with ‘college-boy’ haircuts, Italian-styled suits, purple hearts and parkas, the motor scooter was an important element of the Mod lifestyle. Mods were teenagers from London and the South East who were part of a sub-culture that emerged in the early 1960s and made front-page headlines when they clashed with ‘Rockers’ at the seaside resorts of Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth and Clacton.
Machines were adorned with fur and lamps and sometimes carried a pillion passenger, leaning back with arms folded, until passing a rocker cafe, such as the Ace on the North Circular Road, where the rider would gesticulate wildly, goading Rockers to mount their motorbikes and give chase. The riots in Brighton were recreated in the 1979 film ‘Quadrophenia’.
A Scooter is basically a 2-wheeled motor vehicle with a step-through frame and a wheel diameter of less than sixteen inches. The engine is housed under and behind the rider. The term 'scooter' has no legal definition; such a classification being based on things like speed and engine size. A scooter has floorboards for the rider's feet. Vintage and retro models have an axle-mounted engine using a manual gear change and a handlebar clutch control. Most modern models have CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission).
Two of the most popular scooters were the flat-sided Lambretta GT 200 and the PiaggioVespa GS 160 which had a bulbous back. The Vespa, meaning 'wasp', was patented in 1946 and set a standard for years to come all over the world. In 1947 the Lambretta - which took its name from the milanese neighbourhood in which the factory was placed - was introduced. It was efficient, offering 160-180 miles per gallon and was capable of 45mph.
A moped is a low-powered, (usually up to 50cc), motor-driven machine. Generally they are classified as a restricted speed motorcycle, although they may have three wheels. The term 'moped', was created by Harald Nielsen, a Swedish journalist in 1952, combining 'motor' with 'pedal', though today, a bike does not have to have pedals to be a moped. As with the word 'scooter', the definition is, by no means, final.
Early mopeds, introduced in the 1950s, were bicycles with a supportive helper motor which may have been mounted on the front wheel or below the rider. The Cyclemaster was a UK design which replaced the rear wheel with a powered one. It was based on a German design. Larger bikes were referred to as autocycles. Some mopeds, for example, the Jawa, were based on motorcycles, rather than bicycles.
In the UK, a moped is defined as a motor cycle of low or restricted power. It has an engine capacity of 50cc or less and is designed to go no faster than 30mph. It may have pedals and can be driven under a provisional licence, which can be obtained at the age of 16, although a Compulsory Basic Training Certificate must be obtained in order for it to be driven on a public highway. Mopeds are subject to the standard rules of the road and are excluded from motorways.
Whether it's a moped or a scooter, it may just be your first taste of independence and freedom. It may be your own personal mode of transport. It may be the key to a whole new social network. Whatever it's going to be, it will be fun.