A former military pilot in Malta spent eight years restoring a 1962 Lambretta Li150, building a unique sidecar from a Hawker Sea Hawk drop tank and rediscovering his passion for life along the way. Colonel (Ret’d) Mark Said reports…
Sometimes a restoration project becomes much more than nuts, bolts and paint. Mine began as an escape from aviation and ended as an eight-year labour of love that introduced me to an entirely new world. As a ten-year-old in 1974, I joined the fledgling National War Museum Association in Malta. Military history fascinated me and, from an early age, I dreamt of flying. That ambition eventually became reality when I enlisted in the Armed Forces of Malta. More than twenty years later, I was flying both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, searching for illegal migrants south of the island. Aviation had become my profession and my hobby. I flew military aircraft during the day, my own microlight whenever I could, and spent evenings reading aviation books. My life revolved entirely around flying.
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Then the headaches started.
A different direction
After medical examinations failed to identify a physical cause, a neurologist asked me a simple question: “What do you do for a living?” As I explained my routine, he smiled. The diagnosis was obvious: I needed another interest. At the time I was heavily involved with the Malta Aviation Museum, but I decided I needed something completely different from restoring aircraft. I considered restoring a boat or a classic car before stumbling across a photograph of a Vespa with a sidecar. The sidecar immediately caught my attention because it reminded me of an aircraft drop tank I had seen in the museum stores. The idea of building something unique was irresistible. All I needed now was a scooter.
Fate beneath the stairs
Finding a suitable Lambretta in Malta was no easy task. Classic scooters are highly sought after, and Series 3 Lambrettas are particularly scarce. Then, in February 2008, one unexpectedly appeared beneath the staircase of an apartment block. It wasn’t even for sale, but fate intervened. The owner had just decided he wanted to buy a model boat after reading an article about them. A deal was struck and, €500 later, the Lambretta was heading home in the back of my pick-up truck. Before I even reached home, someone offered me four times what I had paid for it. I politely declined. My new baby had already found its forever home.
Aviation connections
Built in Milan during the first week of February 1962, my Innocenti Li150 Series 3 eventually found its way to Malta from the UK with a British serviceman in 1966. It was tired, neglected and in desperate need of attention, but years spent around people restoring aircraft had taught me one important lesson: almost anything can be brought back to life with enough patience.
Research became the first stage of the project. I immersed myself in the fascinating history of Italian scooters, discovering unexpected links with aviation. Vespa designer Corradino D’Ascanio was an aeronautical engineer, while Lambretta founder Ferdinando Innocenti manufactured bomb casings during the Second World War. Somehow, aviation still managed to find its way back into my new hobby.
The search for parts took me much further afield. During a visit to the Isle of Wight in 2009, I accidentally arrived during one of the island’s famous scooter rallies. It felt like paradise. The owner of my guest house, himself a passionate collector, generously helped me source many of the parts I needed, and I arranged for them to travel back to Malta aboard an Islander aircraft that I was ferrying home. Scooter enthusiasts, I discovered, are remarkably generous people.
Eight years in the making
The restoration itself was never intended to be a race. My philosophy was simple: take your time and seek advice. Every component was dismantled, cleaned, repaired or replaced. Over the years I learnt new skills, including welding, sandblasting, spray painting and even a little woodworking. My garage slowly evolved into a proper workshop.
The most distinctive feature of the finished scooter, however, is undoubtedly its sidecar. Rather than buying one, I decided to build my own using the drop tank from a Hawker Sea Hawk naval fighter. Designing the chassis to fit neatly inside the tank required endless measuring, trial and error, and no shortage of head-scratching, but the result perfectly combined my lifelong passion for aviation with my newly acquired love of Lambrettas.
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No outfit would have been complete without a trailer. After months of searching, I eventually tracked down a rare PAV 40 in Yorkshire. Restoring it presented another challenge, especially when hunting for parts from suppliers in the Czech Republic despite not speaking a word of Czech. Somehow, we managed.
Licence to ride
Perhaps the greatest irony of the entire adventure was that, after spending decades flying military aircraft, I still didn’t possess a full motorcycle licence. At the age of forty-seven I found myself back in training, progressing from a 150cc machine to a 600cc motorcycle before finally passing my test just days before my fiftieth birthday. Another item quietly disappeared from the bucket list.
The restoration eventually took more than eight years and cost considerably more than I care to calculate. My wife still insists we would have been better buying a Jaguar E-Type. She may even be right.
Looking back, however, I wouldn’t change a thing. The Lambretta introduced me to new friends, taught me new skills and replaced headaches with happiness. More importantly, it reminded me that restoration is not simply about preserving machines. Sometimes, in the process of restoring an old scooter, you restore a little of yourself as well.
Words & photos supplied by: Colonel (Ret’d) Mark Said
