In Reply to: Buying Vespas in Bali posted by Hillary on Monday, 6. July 2009 at 10:25 Bali Time:
In the past, I have been offered old Vespas and Harley Davidsons in Indonesia. I have never bought one, as the issues of Australian Customs, freight and the Motor Registry proved too daunting.
For instance, the Motor Registry has to be satisfied that the scooter passed the relevant ADR at the time of manuafacture. As the first ADR dates from 1976, they suggested I import a pre 1976 scooter.
Another source of scooters is the AJS Shop. See:
http://www.indoscooter.com/home.php?id=service
I was once offered an old WLA Harley Davidson for $A400. I knocked it back. Later in Yogjakarta, I met a Kiwi who was riding a WLA to Bali to ship back to Port Hedland. Every 20 kms, he had to stop and repair the bike as the clutch plates had been replaced with sheets of cardboard. All the wiring had been replaced with green household wire.
The Kiwi had a job as a maintenance engineer on the iron mines. He intended to use the mines facilities to repair the bike over two years.
His other project was to import his girlfriend from Timor.
At least one of the scooter shops in Sydney refuses to repair Vespas imported from Indonesia. Apparently, there have been cases of that glossy paint hiding a welded up chassis and bodgy wiring.