Scooter Review SOTY Part I The Scooter of the Year (SOTY) by Scooter Magazine. It’s been fun, but it ain’t been easy.
Words by JEREMY BOWDLER, PETE CALLAGHAN & DAVE DI RADO, photography by LOU MARTIN Welcome to the inaugural Scooter of the Year award. We’ve selected the single scooter that, in our opinion, stands head and shoulders above the rest of the market. We have been handing out a similar award over the other side of the garage at our sister publication twowheels for some 25 years, so we figured we’d borrow from their experience in setting up the criteria for Scooter of the Year. If it ain’t broke...
So, the award is judged according to four criteria:
Fulfilment of Intended Design – this is designed to allow as level a playing field as we can organise for the scooters. In short, each scooter is judged according to its merits, not according to what others are in contention. Appropriate Use of Technology – a scooter costing $10,000 might have groovier gadgets than a scooter costing $2500, but are they necessarily more appropriate? Or are they gilding a lily? Or even masking a lemon?
Quality of Manufacture – a fairly selfexplanatory category. Obvious matters like panel fit and finish are easy to spot, as are likely maintenance hassles. We talk to dealers and, of course, have recourse to our greatest resource: you, as readers who write, email or call with complaints, criticisms or comments.
Value for money – this is probably the easiest category to judge, even though value means different things to different people. Our decision is not made relative only to what the figure on the swing tag is. How much are you paying for a scooter? How much for a name?
We have combed through the back issues and our collective memories to come up with a shortlist of eight finalists, each of which stands out amid the many, many scooters on the market in Australia. It was never going to be an easy job and it was never going to be unanimous – nor will it please all the manufacturers. But that’s not our business, so the list we came up with is, as follows in alphabetical order:
• Honda SH150i
• Piaggio Fly 125
• Piaggio Liberty 200
• Piaggio MP3
• Piaggio X7
• SYM Orbit 125
• SYM VS125
• Vespa 300
As you can see there is wide spread of styles – if not necessarily of manufacturers, but Piaggio invented the modern scooter so that should come as no surprise – although devotees of the larger touring maxis might feel a bit left out, as will riders of 50s the country over. Both of these categories were, of course, inspected, combed through and argued over before we came up with our shortlist.
Maybe next year.
And so, to the judging, and who better to judge than our regular testers, who have ridden virtually every scooter on the market? This broad spread of experience allows us to place each of the short-listed finalists into a context wider than just market categories. It also allows us to measure the finalists against the market, not each other. And finally, it allows us to announce one winner.
As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 25/05/2009
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