How I Got My Weird Indian-Italian-American Vespa Running For The First Time In 11 Years For Less Than $100

In July 2019, I brought home what seemed like an exciting project. For just $500, I got a 2005 Genuine Stella, a 150cc two-stroke, manual transmission scooter that was built in India and based on an old Vespa design. Yet, somehow, I just never got it going. Now, after a total of 11 years sitting dormant, I brought this old scooter back to life. The coolest part? It took me just two hours and less than $100.

I made a sort of a silly realization last month. For about the past two years I’ve always had a press motorcycle parked at home. I spent a year and a half of that time with a 2023 Zero DSR/X electric motorcycle, but I also had an Indian Challenger Dark Horse and a Can-Am Ryker Rally. During that time, I collected a lot of fun and weird bikes, but nothing I was willing to consider my “beater bike.” Admittedly, I’m not in a hurry to ride my Suzuki RE-5 rotary bike in the snow and my Royal Enfield Classic 350 is far too pretty to take to my favorite off-roading area.

I was thinking about just buying a classic Honda CB350. I mean, I’ve always wanted to try one! But I did just spend about $3,000 on a 1997 Honda Life, so I wasn’t exactly in a rush to blow more money. That’s when it hit me. Located deep into my mini warehouse was a little yellow scooter that I’ve almost forgotten even existed. That’s my old Stella!

From Italy, Sort Of

If you’re scratching your head right now, I’ll key you in.

Back in 1982, the folks of Piaggio cut a deal with India’s Lohia Machinery Limited (LML). This was a company that, at that time, had a 50-year history in making agricultural and textile machines. In the deal, Piaggio sold the licensing rights to its Vespa scooters to LML. LML’s first license-built Vespas for the Indian market didn’t have autolube systems and thus required owners to premix gasoline and oil for their two-stroke engines to operate properly.

In 1999, LML launched the Star, a license-built Vespa PX with some engineering changes for the local market in India. This scooter was painted in bold colors and had an autolube system, but was largely similar to the Italian scoot.

The other entity involved in the creation of my scooter was the Genuine Scooter Company. This Chicago-based firm originally opened in 1991 as a parts distributor for Scooterworks USA. In 2002, Genuine decided to get into the business of making its own scooters. The first scooter to be sold under this new identity was the Stella.

The Genuine Stella is nominally just the LML Star, only renamed, rebadged, and given instrumentation in English. In other words, the Stella was originally designed in Italy, modified for and then built in India, and then imported into the United States and given an American brand name.

The result is a properly weird scooter. The Stella features a rear-mounted, air-cooled 150cc two-stroke engine making 8 HP on a good day. That pipsqueak is connected to a four-speed manual transmission. Now, Vespa people already know this, but yes, this is a scooter with a manual transmission! Again, Vespa people will be used to hearing this, but the Stella’s shifting is actually done through twisting the left grip.

Stellas are largely similar to the Vespas that birthed them. They’re almost entirely made out of metal and have that Italian charm. But they’re also really quirky beasts. These scooters aren’t known to age that well. In my experience, if you have a Stella, you’ll almost certainly run into a really stupid electrical issue. The wiring going into the shift grip isn’t the best, and over time you can lose headlight control and the horn. You can also run into ignition switch connection issues, dead starters, no spark, or grenading capacitor discharge ignition systems.

However, the worst issue is a crankshaft bearing failure. If you visit a Stella forum you’ll find endless reports of crank bearing failures, sometimes in scooters with no more than about 4,000 miles or so. Some folks have replaced those bearings, and then their engines failed again later, anyway.

But for some folks, myself included, the quirks and even the failures are a part of the charm. If you want something that runs every single time and has bulletproof reliability, get a Honda. These things are for weirdos who want to do two-stroke burnouts and wheelies while pretending to be from the UK.

I found my scooter for sale on Facebook in 2019 right nearby the former Mitsubishi manufacturing facility that Rivian had only recently purchased at the time. The lady called the scooter Marmalade and told me that it hadn’t run in five years due to some sort of oil leak that she never got around to fixing.

[Ed Note: Wow a Smart with a trailer! -DT]. 

I was stoked for this little cutie, so it was the easiest $500 I ever parted with. I loaded little Marmalade onto a trailer hauled by my Smart and together, we took a road trip hundreds of miles out to Indiana before heading back home.

Then, I suppose, things got weird. I sort of focused on doing Gambler 500 runs and just never got to reviving the scooter. Instead, when I saw a running Stella for sale for $1,000 I bought it and then started riding that. Eventually, my original Marmalade sort of faded into the back of my mind. Sometimes I didn’t even put it into my fleet list. How bad was it? Recently, I wrote about how I got this scooter running. That wasn’t really correct. The scooter I got running was the other Stella I owned!

Last year, the wonderful Stephen Walter Gossin taught me an important lesson in car collecting. He taught me that for people like me with huge car dreams and ambitions, there’s really no need to shackle myself to vehicles I don’t have a heart for. So, I sold off a bunch of broken cars and I’ve never felt better. I tried to sell this scooter, too. Yet, I found nobody willing to spend $500, even though that’s what I spent in 2019. I kept getting offers for $250. For that price, I figured I’d just keep it.

In the time since thinning my fleet I’ve found myself with a lot more time. I’ve gotten back into collecting diecast cars and building custom computers for fun. I’ve also gotten very close to the finish line in getting my Plymouth Special DeLuxe started and I fixed my BMW’s tragic cooling system, too. Heck, I’ve even fixed some broken tablets for friends because that’s actually pretty fun!

A few weeks ago, I realized that I had committed a crime to my poor little Marmalade. If the seller was right, then the scooter hadn’t run for 5 years when I picked it up in 2019. Now it’s 2025, which means we’re now at 11 years since this little machine last ran. That’s 2014! I had to end the cycle.

Wrenching Time

A couple of weekends ago, I gathered my tools and drove out to my mini warehouse. I was determined to get the scooter going that day, no matter what.

At the time, I figured the scooter had two main issues. The first was that the carburetor was gunked up, of course. The second issue appeared to be that the scooter wasn’t getting any power. I first explored trying to fix the scooter in 2023 as an educational experience for my wife. But we never made it past installing a battery. When we flipped on the ignition switch there was nothing. We got no lights, no horn, no turn signals, and no starter. Sheryl and I went home that day and we sort of just went back to ignoring the scooter’s existence.

This time, I wasn’t going home without answers.

Upon arrival to the storage unit, I hooked up a battery and whipped out a multimeter. I figured the issue was either going to be in the ignition or near the main fuse, which lives near the battery. On that Saturday afternoon, I put the key in and turned the switch. Once again, I got no lights. I’m not sure what motivated me to try, but I squeezed the brake lever. Sure enough, the brake light illuminated. It was dim, but it was there!

To make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, I turned off the ignition and tried again. Sure enough, there wasn’t a brake light then. But the brake light came back when I turned the ignition back on. Wait, what!?

I cracked open a Google search and quickly found my answer. Only some parts of the Stella run on DC power from the battery. You can get the brake light, the horn, the starter, and the tiny front parking light from DC power. Everything else runs on AC power when the engine is running. Somehow, this was something I never noticed on my last Stella.

Before I continued, I decided to tackle the issue with the brake light being dim. Now, in 2023 I suspected that the main fuse was wonky, but the fuse tested fine. This time, I realized I never tested the wiring going to the main fuse. Curiously, the folks of LML added the main fuse through two wires that can be disconnected. But the great part is that the connectors fit right into each other, bypassing the fuse entirely. As a test, I tried that and it was a night and day difference. The brake light was shining bright.

Now, I tried the other DC accessories. I didn’t get the parking light or horn, but I did get turn signals and a click from the starter relay. Hey, that’s something! I wasn’t getting the horn because the horn button is broken and the parking light didn’t work because the bulb was blown. So this whole time the electrical issue wasn’t a big deal.

Fixing the fuel system was super easy — barely an inconvenience. First, I drained out what was maybe only a liter of fuel using my now-trusty auto siphon tube. Then, I cracked open the side cover, popped the airbox off, and removed the carburetor. Back in 2023, my wife bought a replacement Spaco carburetor and gasket kit and they had been sitting in my drawer ever since.

Sure, I could have cleaned the old one, but installing the new carb and new gaskets was much easier.

Something I love about this scooter is that it’s not very demanding. If you have a basic socket set and a flat blade screwdriver you can fix basically everything on this scooter. Seriously, even the wheels are held on with small nuts.

Yes, this means that you can change a flat tire crazy easy. The scooter even comes with its own spare! I’ve never owned a single other two-wheeler with an easier way to remove and replace wheels.

First Start In 11 Years

Anyway, once I replaced the carb, the next thing on my list was pouring premix into the tank and giving the kick-start a try. My scooter does have an autolube system, but for this first start I figured some premix was the safe bet.

I first primed the carb by doing three gentle cycles of the kick system. Then, I gave it two good kicks. To my shock and awe, the scooter came to life for the first time in 11 years on only the second real kick. It didn’t just come to life, either, but stayed running the whole time.

I think I spent all of two hours working on it, and most of that was spent troubleshooting the electrical system and then losing my tools. The carb took all of minutes to swap.

I learned one more cool quirk after that first start. The Stella doesn’t even need a battery. Once you have everything dialed in, you just need to turn the ignition switch on and kick the starter. The bike will come to life and provide all of its own electricity. That’s pretty sweet, but I put the battery back on, anyway. It doesn’t hurt to have redundancy.

Sadly, I ran out of time, so I had to return the weekend after to finish the job. I really just had some housekeeping to do. The carb needed proper tuning so it would idle correctly. I also needed to put air in the tires, put the side covers back on, and clean up the rat’s nest of wiring next to the battery.

Even all of that was easy. For carb tuning, I started with both the idle screw and the mixture screws both turned in on max. Then, taking the advice of a Stella mechanic, I backed the mixture screw out 1.25 turns. From there, I adjusted the idle screw about three turns back until I got a nice, low, smooth idle. Boom, carb tuning done in a few minutes.

First Ride

From there, I put the side covers on, closed my garage, then let it rip. I might have been a bit too excited because it immediately did a baby wheelie on departure. Yeah, I forgot about that glorious two-stroke power delivery. Oops!

The scooter’s first ride in 11 years was a great one. It might have been only 45 degrees, but I didn’t care. I had a little engine going “ring ding ding ding” under me, a full tank of gas, and nothing but open road. I had to have ridden the little bugger 50 miles on that first day and each mile was better than the last.

Little by little, my Marmalade started coming back to life. My top speed was only 50 mph at first, but it gradually increased until suddenly, the speedometer breached a magical 60 mph. Every single second was wild.

If you’ve never ridden one of these scooters, I’ll try my best to convey the riding experience. The seat is about as cushy as grandma’s wingback chairs and the springs are about as soft to match. Handling? Sure, it has some of that. You’re riding on a comically short wheelbase and on a pair of adorably tiny tires. It’s more twitchy than a kid after eating an entire bag of Halloween candy. But, hilariously, it’s also not very rigid. Move your body and the bars back and forth and you’ll notice that there’s a very tiny delay between when you move the bars and when the rear end responds. The scooter isn’t unsafe or anything, but it has almost the flexibility of a pool noodle.

All of this is fantastic. This scooter is just dripping with all sorts of character. It’s a little smoky, a little rowdy, a little loud, and a ton of fun. Everyone loves a nice Vespa, too. People will take pictures of you and be legitimately surprised that this little orange gumdrop can even do 60 mph. You can’t get that experience by riding an everyday Honda.

Is it fast? No! Is it powerful? Strike! But is it euphoria on two wheels? Oh yeah it is.

But it’s also sort of a pile of junk, but in an endearing way. The horn doesn’t work, the starter solenoid doesn’t work, and I have no idea when the crank bearing is going to go. I also figured out about the oil leak the previous owner was talking about. It was coming from the autolube system and a tightening of the hose fixed that right up. The scooter still leaks oil, but Stella people tell me they all sort of do that. My little Marmalade is just marking her territory, that’s all.

I can also replace the boring factory CDI unit with one from a Ducati, which will help my top end power and speed. Eh, maybe I’ll do that, maybe not. I might just be ok with 60 mph as a top speed.

But really, the best part is how little actual work and money it took to get the scooter going. The carb was $40 and the battery was $26. I didn’t even spend $100 on the revival!

So, what I’m going to do with Marmalade? My original plan called for selling her, but honestly, this thing is too much fun. I think I’ll ride her through the season at the very least. I bought this scooter six years ago to ride it. I might as well actually do what I said I did.