Scooter Review Sachs City 150 When three scooters are all but the same, it's about power, performance & price. 150cc retro, topbox as standard. $2590+orc
Words by JEREMY BOWDLER, photogaphy by LOU MARTIN Sharp-eyed readers will notice a distinct resemblance between the Eagle Wing Cino in the last issue and this Sachs City 150. Remove a bit of chrome and some mock walnut panelling and they could be, well, identical.
Why is it so?
Professor Julius Sumner Miller would probably raise his shaggy eyebrows at the reason. They are identical, to all intents and purposes. According to Paul Nobbs from Stoney Creek Powersports, importers of the Sachs marque, the Chinese manufacturer Benzhou Vehicle Industry Group reportedly offered several Australian companies sole Australian rights to the same scooter. With a straight face. Nice work if you can get it.
So where does that leave us? With the Sachs City in this instance. It's a little less gaudy than the Eagle Wing nor does it have the Cinoís remote starting facility. What it does have, though, is a gem of an engine in a reasonable chassis wrapped up in well-finished bodywork.
 The other differentiating factor is the engine size. VMoto's Montego and the Eagle Wing are 125s (and Sachs offers a 125cc version as well), but the scoot on test is a 150. While that may not sound like much, it's still a 20 per cent boost in engine capacity and you notice the difference in speed off the mark, up hills and with your main squeeze on board.
Off-idle acceleration was noticeably good, partly thanks to the extra cubes and partly due to a lack of any delay in spinning the clutch up to speed. A relatively high idle probably helps here but, whatever the cause, there was no bogging down or momentary hesitations.
The front brake, a disc with single-piston caliper (as opposed to the twinpiston set up on the Eagle Wing ñ so there are subtle differences) was fine, though youíd be in no danger of locking up the rear end even if the drum was quite efficient. Handling, too, was on a par or better than average for the class, with the City holding its own in town, though the small rims/tyre combo would be less than ideal for really bumpy stuff.
I appreciate the topbox, though Iíd hesitate to put anything much heavier than a helmet in there. Weight that far behind the rear axle will upset handling, and it would place a lot of stress on the delicate-looking mounting bracketry. The problem stems from placing the filler cap behind the seat. Itís fiddly at the best of times and adding a topbox makes it harder still unless you mount the box far enough back, which leads to the original problem here. The pillion backrest is a nice idea, though.
Speaking of comfort, the scooter is reasonably good, though the seat locks you into place a little and the legroom is fairly tight. Thereís a bit more vibration through the seat than with the 125, and the mirrors need to be tightened up from time to time, but at least the multi-jointed stems allow fine adjustments to the positioning.
An open glovebox and twin bag hooks are nice ideas, as is the ignition switch-operated seat latch. The quality of paint and panel fit are certainly better than most stuff out of China and is easily at a Taiwanese/Korean level, if not pushing the Japanese. But the nicest touch in a world where so much is the same is the fact that it slips into the market at $400 less than the two smaller identikit scooters it's pitched against.
As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 28/12/2007
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