At Petersen Automotive Museum, a Salute to the Scoot - NYTimes.com

The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles is showcasing nearly 100 scooters of all shapes, sizes and eras during its exhibit ?Scooters: Size Doesn?t Always Matter,? opening on Saturday and running through May 28, 2012.

?No one has ever done a comprehensive study on what a scooter is,? said Leslie Kendall, the museum?s curator, in a telephone interview. ?Just because it?s small doesn?t mean it?s a scooter.?

An Italian-built Piaggio Vespa or Lambretta puttering along cobblestones or darting around a Roman rotary may comprise the time-tested vision of a scooter in its element. Few enthusiasts would envisage something like the 1947 Mohs, a one-off, 13-foot scooter built by a then 14-year-old in Madison, Wisc., that is on loan to the museum from the original builder and owner. The Mohs is 10 inches longer than a 2011 Mini Cooper.

?We want to show things they never considered when they think about scooters,? said Mr. Kendall about the impact he hoped the show would have on visitors. ?We?re trying to explain the phenomenon and how it?s come and gone over the years.?

The curatorial focus of the exhibit may be considered obsessive. One section is dedicated to scooters built in the Los Angeles area from the mid-1930s to the immediate postwar period.

The exhibition also includes one of the most valuable scooters in the world, a 1946 Salsbury. Believed to be the only one in existence, the scooter is in entirely original condition. ?It?s the holy grail of scooters,? said Mr. Kendall. ?It looks like something Elroy Jetson would?ve climbed aboard and zipped off to school.? Mr. Kendall estimates the value of the scooter to be in the ?tens of thousands,? though an exact price is difficult to determine.

?What makes scooters valuable isn?t necessarily their performance,? he said. ?It?s really their looks, rarity and, just like cars, the kind of chic they confer upon the rider.?

Roughly 100 years separates the oldest and newest scooters in the show. The oldest model is an Autoped, dating to the mid-?10s and built on Long Island, N.Y. The newest, a 2011 Piaggio MP3, has two wheels in the front for extra stability and to enhance stopping power. There is the requisite smattering of vintage Vespas and Lambrettas.

Emphasizing the scooter?s tendency toward quirk, however, is the exhibit?s meat and potatoes. A single-passenger 1939 Moto-Kar, built by scooter manufacturer Moto-Scoot, is more child?s toy than automobile. A 1938 Rock-Ola Deluxe was offered by the jukebox company of the same name. A 1944 Cushman Airborne, a military-spec scooter parachuted out of airplanes, was intended for use by paratroopers once they reached terra firma.

?We?re in another wave of scooter enthusiasm,? said Mr. Kendall, who credited everything from higher fuel prices to the return of the Vespa to the American market with rekindling interest in stylish two-wheeled transportation. ?It?s an exciting time to be a scooterist.?

Source: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/at-petersen-automotive-museum-a-salute-to-the-scoot/

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