Scooter Review

Vespa GTS 250 i.e.

Cross-town or cross-country, the biggest-ever Vespa is a dynamo on a deadline.

Words by PETE CALLAGHAN, photography by LOU MARTIN

The phone rang at 4.14pm. Dave. "You legend!" he screamed into my left ear. I hadn't done anything to merit this adulation – he was just kissing arse. The next sentence told me why. "Mate, I've got this new bed and I need a hand to get it upstairs." I'd planned to head home via my local library to collect a book I'd placed on reserve, but figured I could manage the detour to Dave’s place and still make the library and home by a reasonable hour.

The Vespa GTS 250 was waiting for me in the carpark downstairs. Shining darkly in its jet-black livery, the GTS looked every inch a Vespa – just bigger, like the factory had upscaled every dimension by 20 per cent. The tan seat looked cool, but could be a target for grime over time. Good thing there's a plastic rain cover tucked underneath. I pressed the button on the front panel to pop open the seat. There's the fuel filler and a plastic storage bin beneath it. Not enough space for a helmet, but a pair of jeans and my rain suit fitted in easily. Want more carrying capacity? The retro-style folding rear rack comes standard and holds plenty. Mind you, the underseat storage bin's removable, and watertight. You could toss in a bag of ice and a few cold ones for a mid-ride refreshment session...

The GTS fired up first stab and settled into an incredibly quiet idle. With virtually no mechanical noise evident, there's just a faint 'phutt-phutt' exhaust note to remind you the motor's running.

I settled into the saddle, and discovered there’s plenty of legroom in the spacious footwell and a sensible reach to the handlebars. Pointed the thing towards Bourke Road and twisted the throttle. Good stuff – not much lag as the clutch takes up and the GTS fairly leaped forward into the afternoon traffic.

The trip through Alexandria, Redfern, Chippendale and on to Dave’s pad in the seething heart of Ultimo was over before I knew it. Twist, go, brake, slow, swerve, dart, slice and dice – a rhythm emerging and repeating as we climbed over the hunched backs and zipped past the harried faces of the tin-toppers.

The mattress muscling was completed in short order, a quick beer for a job well done and I was back out in the chaos once more. It was more chaotic, though – 5.30pm and the rush was in full swing – but the GTS slid smoothly and silently past a line of waiting cars in Dave’s back lane, hopped a couple of lanes of similarly stagnant sedans and was out on Wattle Street in seconds flat.

The run up to the Harbour Bridge got slower with every metre and as we passed King Street Wharf, the tailback stopped progress dead – for everyone except me, that is. With the digital tacho’s bar graph display bouncing between three and six thou, and the CVT hovering either side of the ideal takeup point for instant acceleration, the GTS’s Quasar injected engine was in a sweet spot to deliver just the right amount of power as determined by my right hand. Slowly rolling on brought a brief dash of acceleration, while twisting harder gave proportionally more. The GTS danced in and out of the four-wheelers, finding gaps and filling them, then moving onto the next one – and all with gentle movements of the throttle alone.

By the time I hit the Bridge proper, the flow was okay, but the headwind had arrived. It was to dog me most of the way home, but the occasional cross-gusts did nothing to unsettle the Vespa. A small lurch here and a wobble there were all that registered, and the scoot was stable and steady again in a flash.

The 12-inch wheels floated over the tar seams and ridges on the construction zone that is the Gore Hill Freeway, and the sharp, but not flighty, steering had us swooping from lane to lane with precision. Epping Road (right past Scully’s Gully and the Incredible Leaning Apartment Block) was clearer than usual, and we hit the M2 ahead of time.

I sat behind a midget in a blue WRX with a fat bazooka exhaust as the motorway opened out. He gunned it hard, drowning me in a wreath of unmuffled Boxer drone. I followed, cranking the Vespa’s throttle and feeling the rear of the scoot squat ever so slightly as the full 15.7kW chimed in.

Achtung! A green hatchback, propped between lanes, trying desperately to merge left but copping no breaks from Sydney’s caring, sharing drivers. The midget jumped on the picks and swerved right. I grabbed a handful of front brake, felt a bit disappointed with the immediate lack of response, and squeezed the rear to help out. Much better.

Disaster averted, I gave chase to the midget again. One hundred clicks came up effortlessly. The midget played it safe, ducking into the left lane and leering at me as I swooshed by. Feeling cheeky, I wound it on more and grinned back, zooming past a black Supra, all flared guards and wacky wings, driven by another midget, before discretion kicked in. 135km/h, and there was more to come. Vespa 2, fully sicks 0.

I swung off the M2 in good shape, hauled arse up the hill to cross Seven Hills Road and back down the other side, then cut through the Norwest Corporate Park in a beeline for the Castle Hill library. The first roundabout could have been my last: I didn’t spot the thin line of oil on the road until I was cranked over and on it, but the GTS didn’t waver. The front wheel slipped a bit then gripped, the back did the same, and next thing I was thrust out the other side with nothing more than a rueful smile and a few beads of sweat as mementos.

The other three roundabouts were a blast. Fly in, dab the rear brake, chuck the Vespa on its side, and holler out. There’s a lot of sportsbike in this little scoot. The comfort factor was high, too – almost an hour into the trip and no complaints from the butt department.

Rolling into the library carpark, I noticed the juice situation was looking grim: 190km on the clock and one solitary bar left on the digital fuel gauge. I was pretty sure I’d make it home without a stop, but that didn’t mean I didn’t worry. I hate pushing bikes.

That solitary fuel bar had vanished by the time I fired the GTS back up for the 10km home leg. Or, at least, I thought it had. It took a few glances to make sure. The Vespa’s liquid crystal display packs a lot of info in a smallish space – along with the fuel gauge, there’s a tacho, clock, ambient temperature and engine temperature, tripmeter and odometer. The numbers and figures are pretty tiny and difficult to see instantly on the move. By contrast, the analogue speedo (with both km/h and mph increments) is big and bold.

Whatever ... I coasted down the hill on Showground Road in shortlived attack of sensibleness, but then enthusiasm got the better of me in the roundabouts on Kings Road, and I was wringing the Vespa’s neck again.

I got caught in a quick game of ‘Guess Which Lane I’m Going To Choose’ with an errant P-plater on Green Road, before emerging with a victory. Fired up, I ran the GTS hard into the dip where Green meets Samantha Riley Drive. On the way back up, Samantha Riley curves left past the bushfire brigade station and there’s a whole mess of little bumps and ripples laying in wait at the apex to unsettle a bike as it powers through on lean.

The Vespa hardly noticed them. The single-sided trailing arm front end shook once, as did the twin-shock rear, but the scoot clung like a limpet to its line.

I played it cool for the last few kays – all 50km/h zones and suburbia. The odometer signalled 200km as I squirted the GTS up my driveway and into the garage. I’d beaten my ETA by 10 minutes. Even with the added diversions, it had been a good trip home. The GTS 250 is one mother of a moped, with enough cheek to match its chic, and engineering to back up the attitude. This scoot could well be a keeper

As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 13/12/2005
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