Visitors to the Newark Scooter World halls couldn’t fail to notice the line-up of machines being shown by Martin Robinson.
Among the machines on show was a model D Racer that Lambretta racing legend Norman Ronald just couldn’t keep his eyes off. With its Ferrari red paintwork and its chrome Abarth exhaust, it truly was an eye-catcher.
The history behind Model D racers doesn’t appear to be documented in detail anywhere that I have found. Innocenti built a number of race machines that were then (depending on which account you believe) either given to Lambretta dealers who sold the most machines in a year, or were given to privateer racers. What is clear is that none were ever raced by an Innocenti factory team. So the term ‘Factory Racer’ should probably be better given as ‘Factory-Built Racer’.
All of that aside, Martin’s machine came to him from an Italian who had the scooter restored by Vittorio Tessera and Martin has told me that it was at the museum in Milan.
Martin liked the scooter for many reasons, most of all its rarity. Let’s be honest, Lambretta race machines aren’t a regular sight, either in the scooter classifieds, or in scooter dealers; so it’s easy to see the attraction of such a rarity.
EARLY DOORS
This story is from the April/May 2017 edition of Classic Scooterist.
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This story is from the April/May 2017 edition of Classic Scooterist.
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