By packing 38 tire-blistering horsepower into a cut-down, ultra lightweight 2 wheeler with a straight-cut, 4-speed transmission, the German mental patients at Scooter and Service may have just built the world's most perfect vintage Vespa.


That's right, kids. Thirty-eight horsepower. To the wheel.

If you've been paying attention, you'll note that this tiny hellion Vespa is packing more horsepower than that ridiculous Harley-Davidson Street 500 your dad is thinking about buying to tool around his 50+ retirement community on. That's also more horsepower than the latest entry-level sport bikes from Honda and Kawasaki, and it's all wrapped in a package that you could probably ride down a city bike lane without drawing the nasty looks that (trust me on this) a full-size big boy bike will net you. At under 200 lbs., each of those 38 horses only has to pull about 5.3 lbs. That's better than a Porsche- and not just any Porsche, mind you- but Porsche's raciest car ever, the 475 HP 2014 GT3 911.


Factor in that this vintage smallframe Vespa is so utterly non-threatening in appearance that your mom will not only call it "cute", she might ask to borrow it. ProTip: unless your mom is Susanna Schick, she'll be killed.

You can check out the final product ...



... and take a look at some of the behind-the-scenes work that went into this jaw-dropping, 80 MPG (like, at a steady cruise) vintage Vespa restomod, below. Let us know what you think of the little bike, and how you'd ride the crazy thing in the comments at the bottom of the page.






Source | Photos: Scooter and Service, via Return of the Cafe Racers.