I received an e-mail from Gary who'd owned a scooter shop in the 80s. His letter put a big smile on my face and I thought I'd publish excerpts from his letter to share the smile with others. I hadn't gotten around to replying to Gary in a timely fashion and by the time I replied asking for permission to share his letter,  his e-mail address was invalid. If you're reading this Gary, write me. Garys letter reads as follows: Hi Doug, My name is Gary and I just wanted to tell how amazed and amused I was to find your Honda scooter web site. I was a line mechanic in a big Honda Dealership in Tucson in the early '80's when the scooter craze started. They were selling like hot cakes to the U of A students and one of the first things I noticed was, that after they sold them, the dealers didn't want anything to do with them. So I opened a shop (The Scooter Connection) with the dealers blessing next to the U of A. My logo featured a cartoon of a knee-draging scooter racer that I pirated from a Japanese mini-cycle magizine. The shop walls were decorated with all the cool scooter posters of the day. My faves were Grace Jones, Devo and Atom Ant. I did only Honda and Yamaha scooters and Japanese "no-peds" [Express's, Yamahopper's, Suzuki FA  50's and the like. For a while, I imported Kitico 50cc high performance parts from Japan, but there wasn't much market other than myself and I had problems with the big bore pistons seizing I don't think they were made by ART, you know, that really busy guy that makes all the Japanese O.E.M. pistons:). At the end of the school year, I would dumpster dive behind the dorms and usually come up with a dozen or so abandoned 50's and 80's. As a lark, I stripped several down and invited some friends to go racing (keeping the Aero 50 for myself!) and we would play race around an adandoned industrial park. For a while I rode a Aero 50 (the best 50cc scooter ever made, IMO) that was ported and fitted with a Kitico pipe and big carb (open filter). I'm not sure how fast it went (buried the speedo needle of course), but it was definitely spooky, even with 3:00 tires and a Aero 80 shock. Some other scooter highlites were: I took a beater Aero 80 with me for a 3 wk. vacation at a small beach town in Mexico (my then wife was from there) and after I let some of the local kids ride it they couldn't get enough. I had to take the keys away and when I was gone they hot-wired it. I gave up and they rode it night and day for the whole time I was there. In fact, they were still riding it when I left. The Aero 80 engine has to be the toughest two-stroke engine ever built. I don't think I ever took one apart. The dealer sold what seemed like thousands of "Iowa" Sprees for $299. They were restricted (tiny down pipes) to meet the mo-ped laws for the state of Iowa (why Iowa?). They wouldn't get out of their own way and did the "clog-up" 50cc scooter boogie almost right away. My solution was a"steel enema" with a two ft. long drill bit. At one point, I mounted an Elite 250 engine on a CH 125. I was suprisingly easy, but the side panels wouldn't go back on so I never finished it. During the 8 years I had that shop, I rode scooters most of the time. My all time favorite scooter was/is the Elite 150, the first generation models. The metalic red and espically the blue were prized. An evening desert ride with that warmly glowing digital dash was too much fun. IMO, Honda screwed it up when they changed it. Unfortunately, those models and scooters in general, didn't do well in the intense Az. sun (from a cosmetic standpoint). I always told them to keep them  out of the sun, but they were well,....students. If I said "don't use chain saw oil" once I must have said it a thousand times. When I found out about the mini racing in Calif., I thought about campaigning a scooter, but as good as Mr. Salisbury's transmisson is, it doesn't transfer power that efficently and I knew I would never keep up with the YSR's. But being a Honda kind of guy, I got a NS 50 (liquid-cooled, reed-valved, six-speed. An updated MB5. and started modifing [my middle name]. Using a KX 60 piston, a Hydro-formed pipe and the trans, ign, reed block and manifold from an air-cooled CR80, I got it up to to about 15 h.p. at almost 15,000 r.p.m. The 28mm round slide from the CR was too big and most of the time I used a Mikuni 26mm flat-slide. Clocked on radar at 72m.p.h. at the "Streets" track at Willow Springs, I had the motor on the YSR's and If I could keep them in sight, I knew they would fade towards the end (being air-cooled) and I would have my chance. Keeping with them was a challenge though, even with a pair of super skinny 18" slicks (off the frt. of a RS 125) I couldn't get the grip the fat little 12" slicks on the YSR's would. Anyhow, I did alright finishing 5th. expert my last yr. In the early '90's, scooter prices rose to a point where the students stopped buying them and the scooter boom went bust. A sad time for me. And I didn't really think about scooters for 15 years, until recently. I've taken a job at a resort  and I have started thinking I will probably buy a scooter to get around. That's why I was searching the web on Scooters. I was looking at a Chinese copy of a Riva 125   when I ran across your site. Oh well, what goes around, comes around. Thanks again for stirring up the memories and sorry about bending your ear. I guess I never got scooter closure. Gary For more info about  the introduction of  modern scooters in the early 80's visit this page.