do love a good scooter. I own a Vespa 300 HPE which I use daily, but also head off on for the occasional tour with like-minded friends- Cape Reinga and Coromandel loops being the most recent. I like the impressive speed and agility of the 300, so I was interested to see how the new Lambretta G350 would perform in comparison.

ITALIAN FLAIR First impressions are that it’ s actually a bit flashy and Italian looking, in a way that makes you feel you need to dress accordingly. I liked the gleaming metal mag wheels and the shiny headed bolts, mounting discs etc but I did notice that even new there was a little oxidisation on the bolt heads- a bit of ACF50 might sort that I think. The first thing that’ s really different on this funky new G350 is the front suspension, which uses a double arm, link suspension set up with twin manually adjustable coil shocks. It held promise. A plastic guard juts forward with a weird echo of motocross / motard stylings. But,

38 KIWI RIDER