Nobody will ever confuse me with Nostradamus. But both of us exper-ienced prophetic visions after trips to Italy, albeit more than 450 years apart. Nostradamus saw battles in the clouds, frogs falling from the sky and the end of the world. I saw scooters.
Rome, Naples, Florence. I saw Vespas and Piaggios everywhere in urban Italy during a trip there last year.
Why not in the U.S.? With gas prices soaring, with traffic congestion worsening, with vacant parking spaces rarer, getting around the city on a scooter makes too much sense.
My vision involved more than just buying a scooter, which I did this summer from a former Seattleite. What about opening a Vespa dealership in Tacoma?
Randy and Lisa Sobel had the same vision. The University Place couple opened Northwest Motor Scooters in August at 5428 South Tacoma Way.
And it didn’t result from a trip to Italy. It came after a trip to New York in May.
“A Vespa went by me,” Randy Sobel said. “I was in a car. We were crawling. It wasn’t. And I said, ‘I’m going to get a Vespa franchise.’”
That’s not as impulsive as it sounds.
For the last 17 years, Randy Sobel has run one of North America’s largest schools for sellers of and dealership managers for motor vehicles of all kinds – cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, motor homes and construction equipment. He expects to fly more than 400,000 miles this year teaching seminars and speaking at conferences.
So, Randy Sobel decided to put the mopeds where his mouth has been. The Sobels acquired the exclusive franchise for Italian-made Vespas in the region between Portland and Seattle. They also secured Kymco, a popular brand manufactured in scooter-happy Taiwan.
Plus, Randy Sobel saw the trend line for U.S. scooter sales.
In 1997, U.S. consumers bought 12,000 scooters. Last year, the number skyrocketed to 131,000, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.
Scooters, unlike motorcycles, have a step-through frame and an automatic transmission. You still must wear a helmet. And you need a motorcycle endorsement on your driver’s license to drive any scooter with engine power of 50cc or more. You can ride in the rain and even stay dry with all-weather suits.
“I drove a scooter for three years in high school (on Mercer Island) and four years of college” at the University of Washington, Sobel said. “It was my primary form of transportation. It’s like having a horse. You name it, you get on it, you ride it. They’re just a blast.”
And if you visit Northwest Motor Scooters today, you might get assistance from the Sobels’ daughter, Shauna, or a student from one of the Sobel & Associates sales training classes.
“We hold ourselves to a higher standard, because the students who come here have to see that we practice what we preach. We expect everyone who walks in the door will get an A-plus presentation,” Randy Sobel said.
Keith Langford of Gig Harbor will vouch for that. He’ll celebrate his 60th birthday Saturday by riding around on his new red Vespa GTS, a 250cc scooter his wife, Florence, bought him as a birthday present.
He bought his first scooter, a smaller Vespa, two years ago, and decided to trade up through Northwest Motor Scooters so he and Florence could take long cruises together.
“Why a scooter, huh?” Langford said. “When I was a teenager growing up near Chicago, I wanted a motor scooter, and my father would not allow it, thinking they were too dangerous. The years passed, and I didn’t give it a second thought until my mid-50s. Then I said, ‘You know what? I can fulfill my childhood dream.’”
And his parents, Chuck and Lorraine Langford? They live in Gig Harbor now, too.
Dad “just sort of shakes his head and says, ‘Whatever you gotta do,’” Langford said. “My mother just closes her eyes, and says, ‘I hope you don’t take that thing on the highway.’”
But Langford confirmed the appeal that Sobel has heard time and again from customers.
“Fun. That’s what it is,” Langford said. “Even teenagers say, “Cool ride.’ Every place I go practically, especially when I fill up at a gas station, people ask me how many miles to the gallon I get. And when I say 65 to 70, their eyes bug out.”
Rising gas prices, Sobel predicted, will continue to fuel scooter sales.
“Scooters and motorcycles were made in Europe first,” he said. “The culture is there. For us to make that culture shift, it’s going to take gas prices going up to more than $5 a gallon. … I’m not an economist, but I think we’ll see 5 bucks a gallon here.”
I don’t know what gas prices will do. But I can tell you that my red 2003 Kymco Bet ’N Win, at 250cc, gets me around town with plenty of power. I can squeeze into a sliver of a parking space. It peaks at 75 mph on the highway and records a little more than 65 miles on a gallon of gas.
Not bad, even when gas costs $3.13 a gallon.
Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785
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