Mark's 1980s Classic Custom

Revisiting one of the UK’s best-known custom scooters from the 1980s, which still remains in the possession of its original owner.

- Big Chris

I often say that if I didn’t have any ‘badluck’ then I would have no luck at all; ifit can go wrong, then for me it usually will, as everything I seem to do these days has to be done twice. This is not usually my fault, I hasten to add, but down to the incompetence and poor standards of others. But thinking back to simpler times, I wasn’t always under this shadow of misfortune and I can consider myself to have been lucky for several reasons.

Firstly I was born in Yorkshire – what more could you really ask for, I hear you all say!

Well, I was also lucky enough to have been born at such a time that my adolescence coincided with the Mod Revival. I was also lucky to live in Wakefield, which was always a big scootering area and which meant that when I did get my first scooter I could join the Wakefield Knights SC. I do consider myself very lucky to have been in the right area to join such a club, as back in the 1980s they were a force to be reckoned with from within the scooter scene, especially in regards to the custom and show scooter circuit.

We had the likes of Mick Howard with the ‘Sign of the Snake’, Mouse with ‘Grand Prix’, Andy Horne with ‘Mighty Pokémon’... err, no?

‘Monty Python’... no, not that either??

‘Mythopoeiken’... ah! That’s it!

And, of course, the Wood Brothers, Paul with ‘Temptation’ as it was, and Mark (the older brother) with the absolutely brilliant, for its time, ‘Revenge’ – a Vespa P200E that’s still owned and ridden by Mark today.

THE AROUSAL