QUETTA: Even though the contemporary automotive market in Pakistan offers a wide variety of high-speed motorbikes to consumers, a group of enthusiasts from Pakistan’s southwestern Quetta city is not only holding on to vintage VESPA scooters but also planning a tour to Italy, the birthplace of the iconic bike.
Made in 1946 by an Italian company, VESPA scooters provided a reliable two-wheel ride to many Pakistanis in the early 1960s. But the demand for the scooter started declining in the 1990s when the country started manufacturing and assembling CD70 motorbikes for domestic customers.
The uniquely-colored scooters are still popular among a group of 30 bikers in Quetta, who call themselves the Mukhlis (sincere) Scooter Group.
Founded in 2005 by 39-year-old Ejaz Ahmed, a local businessman who started riding his father’s 1976 VESPA model in eighth grade, the group travels out of Quetta every Friday for a long, comfortable ride. The scooter enthusiasts say they have completed a 4,000-kilometer Pakistan tour and are now planning to travel to Europe.
“We want to travel to Italy to show the Italians that we [the people of Pakistan] have preserved their VESPA in very good condition,” Sadaat Khan Kakar, a practicing advocate at the Balochistan High Court, who owns five VESPA scooters of different models, told Arab News.
The vintage model VESPA (Scooters) parks at a fuel station in Quetta on May 26, 2023. (AN Photo)
“The people of Balochistan are the only ones who have kept the unique two-wheel ride well-maintained,” he continued, adding some VESPA aficionados had even installed expensive music systems, neon lights, and booster cylinders to enhance the aesthetics, speed, and efficiency of their scooters.
Other group members said they loved VESPA since they thought it more comfortable than modern-day bikes.
“It is a very comfortable ride with a low consumption of fuel,” Ahmed, the group’s founder, said. “After taking a 400- to 500-kilometer ride, you will feel as if you have driven a car.”
“We take care of our VESPAs as if they were our children and park them inside our house since we can’t tolerate a single scratch on them,” he added. “We only take our scooters outside once a week.”
The photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows the VESPA (Scooter) group on a journey in Dasht Balochistan. (AN Photo)
Ahmed added while there were regular reports of bike snatching across Pakistan, no one had ever complained about a scooter being taken away for them.
“It is because it is not an easy ride for everyone and you can’t speedily drive them through the narrow streets of the city,” he said.
In terms of prices, he said that scooters were available in Balochistan within the range of Rs20,000 ($70.18) to Rs1 million ($3,508).
He added that people did not mind the exorbitant price tag since they were fond of riding these scooters and even spent money on engine maintenance and upper body modification.
Despite coming close to the hearts of the group members, getting a VESPA repaired is not easy since very few mechanics are familiar with the working of its engine. Besides, it is also difficult to find its spare parts.
“We used to purchase scooter spare parts from Quetta but now there isn’t any shop selling them, so we have to order them from Lahore, Karachi and even from England and Italy,” said Mansoor Ashraf, an experienced scooter mechanic in the city.
He said he was also a VESPA enthusiast and not only owned a model from the 1970s but had also traveled to Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, and Azad Kashmir on it.
“I call my scooter a mini-car because while it has two wheels, we can carry an extra one with it, which makes it special,” he added.
