Scooter Review TGB Voodoo 50 TCB with TGB. It’s an every day thing.
Photography by CARLOS ALZAMORA Scooters are here to stay, and there are three very good reasons why. They are cheap, they are easy and they are fun. When most people think scooter, thought, they think Vespa the brand which has achieved collective noun status – think Hoover, Band-Aid, etc. But that’s only half the story.
Sure Vespa makes (and sells) a lot of scooters, but so do a lot of other people. When I was in Rome for the ET4 launch in 1996, an Indian journo asked me about the new bike market in Australia. It’s up, I replied patriotically, to at least 22,000 units per year. “Ah yes,” he went on. “Ours is also up, to just over nine million”. And all of those bikes have to come from somewhere.
  Which brings us to the TGB scooters, imported and distributed by Stoney Creek Powersports. TGB, as you undoubtedly already know, stands for Taiwan Golden Bee. What you might not know is that TGB has been established since 1978, and has 29 different models in the current range. The company also manufactures and supplies major componentry to Japanese and European manufacturers, is recognised in the International Standards Organisation 9001 and has achieved four of their National Quality Awards.
 And the scooters themselves? Well, they are obviously built to a price and to a market. We rode the Sienna 125 and the Voodoo 50, two of eight models imported to Australia, and they are great. A little rough around the edges as far as the finish goes, but they incorporate all of the user-friendly features which make scooters so practical.
Performance is pretty much smack in the middle of the pack, which is to say faster than cars but slower than bikes, the storage is practical and they are easy to ride.
Where the TGBs really win out is in the pricing, which makes a TGB in the garage a very practical – and desirable – proposition. And it comes with a 12-month parts and labour warranty.
As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 27/10/2003
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