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California
Scooter Company
Everybody likes a feel-good story,
nostalgia, and companies that create jobs here in the US. If you
found your way to this site, you probably are part of the chosen few who
also like motorcycles. This is a good story about the California
Scooter Company and its lineage.
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| This is a very cool story...it's
a rebirth (of sorts) of the Mustang motorcycle from the 1940s and
1950s. If you are old enough to remember the Mustang, you'll recall
that it was a very cool motorcycle that did things quite a bit differently
than the other guys. It was a small thing, and it used smaller
wheels. You might be tempted to think that because of its size its
performance was similarly scaled down, but that wasn't the case. The
Mustang was killing its competitors on the track. Its size and its
smaller wheels made it handle way better than other machines; so much so
that the powers-that-be in those days rewrote the rules to exclude it from
competition. If you don't think that was fair, you may have an
opportunity to get in the last laugh...
The photo to the right shows Howard Forrest,
the original Mustang Motor Corporation's chief engineer, tuning a
Mustang. That's Jim Cavanaugh in the background (the original
Mustang Motor
Corporation's production manager). |
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| The Mustang Motor Corporation's
assembly line about 60 years ago, in Glendale, California. |
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Chuck Gardner cruising on a
Mustang in the old days (probably the late 1940s; check out the cars in
the background).
Chuck Gardner and Howard Forrest
designed the original Mustang. |
| So, with the above as a
backdrop, it's time to introduce the California Scooter
Company. Steve Seidner, founder of Pro-One Performance
Manufacturing (they designed and built, on a production basis, high end
custom motorcycles) had always wanted a Mustang. He bought one in
2008 and, to cut to the chase, Seidner set up a company to manufacture a
modern motorcycle that takes its styling cues from the original Mustang
design. It's a completely new street-legal machine, with a 150cc
engine, a 5-speed transmission, electric and kick starting, modern
metallurgy, and a style that is beyond cool.
Check out the photos below, and you'll see
what I'm talking about. |
| So, how cool is this? It's the
California Scooter Company's "Classic" model.
Blacked out 149cc engine, chromed steel wheels, fire-engine-red
paint, black leather seat, lots of chrome, and style that doesn't
end. Check out the Springer seat, the disk brakes (yep, front
and back), and the steel-braided brake lines. Like all
California Scooter Company products, this is a street-legal
motorcycle. Is it me, or does this motorcycle look like the offspring of a Fat Boy and a Mustang? $4995, and it's
yours. Doesn't it look like fun? |
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| The style on the "Baby Doll"
is another home run. This has a tasty blend of pink and white,
pinstriping, a white seat with silver metalflake and white piping, wide-whitewall "gangster"
tires, and a silver engine. The colors and the style just
work; it reminds me a bit of the custom paint jobs on the Harley
Heritage Softails in the early '90s, which were in turn an
interpretation of the automobile pastels popular in the '50s.
In fact, the "Pastel Princess" might be another good name
for this color scheme. I like it a lot. This is another
one that looks good in a photo, but when you see the real thing, it
is visually arresting. The fit and finish on these bikes are
top notch. |
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| My personal favorite...the Greaser.
When I was a kid, we fell into one of only two categories...you were
either a greaser or a hippie. Hippies were anti-everything,
and greasers were motorheads. You can guess which category I
belonged to. This Scooter has it all (even the name works for
me!). Its powder-coated red wheels, gangster tires,
blacked-out engine, and flat black paint picks up on a styling motif
made popular in the late '40s (it looks like it came right off a
hot-rod Model A Ford with a flathead engine). This one is
perfect, and when I pull the trigger, this is the one I will be
aiming for. Just like the two Scooters above, this one is
$4995, too. |
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| I next had a chance to visit the
California Scooter Company factory and learn a bit more about the
bikes and their design. These machines have revived the market
niche pioneered by the original Mustang motorcycle, and that's
exactly what Steve Seidner intended to do when he started this
company. Think about that - these bikes are reviving a niche
left untouched for nearly half a century. As a result, I
believe there's no way to directly compare the California Scooter
Company's bikes with any other currently-available motorcycle or
scooter.
Let's consider the word
"scooter." That's a loaded word. Even
people who ride motor scooters can't agree on what a scooter
is. Does it have to have small wheels? Does it
have to have a step-through frame? If a step-though frame
qualifies a bike as a scooter, would the early Honda Cubs (those
50cc bikes you met the nicest people riding) or Honda trail bikes be
considered scooters? How about a 650cc Suzuki scooter that is
freeway legal and can go over 100 mph? Is that a
scooter? Many folks would consider a motor scooter to be
something that looks like a Vespa (little wheels, step-through
frame, and enclosed bodywork), but all of that is largely
irrelevant here.
Think along the lines of 1960s/1970s
slang for the word "motorcycle." Back in those days,
we called our rides "Scooters," and when we did, we sure
weren't referring to Vespas or Lambrettas. When you hopped on
your Harley-Davidson or Triumph and went out for a ride, you were
out on your "Scooter." It was understood (at least
in the crowd I rode around with) what a Scooter was. It was a
two-wheeled ticket to a good time. It still is.
So with that in mind, don't try to
compare the California Scooter Company machines to Vespas, Burgmans,
or something you can buy from China for $1200. These bikes are
in a league of their own. |
| Steve Seidner (founder of Pro-One
Performance Manufacturing and the California Scooter Company) with
the Classic, in the company's California manufacturing facility.
Pro-One Performance Manufacturing builds high performance V-twins
and custom components for American and metric cruisers. That
heritage carries forward into the California Scooter Company product
line. |
| A custom paint job and seat on a
California Scooter Company bike on display in the factory's office
area. California Scooter Company offers three models (as
described earlier on this web page). Each of the three
standard scooters (the Babydoll, the Classic, and the Greaser) are
game-changing, show-stopping conversation starters. One
of the nice things about these machines is they can be left as is,
or they can be viewed as a blank palette for creating a truly
personalized machine. The bike above (I named it the
"Creamsicle") obviously has a custom paint job, and it
also has painted aluminum wheels, a custom air filter, a custom
exhaust pipe, a custom seat, and many other personal touches. |
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There are many things that set
the California Scooter Company bikes apart from other motor scooters, not
the least of which are high end touches like custom-designed disk brakes,
braided-steel brake lines, custom-designed handlebars, a clean steel gas
tank with no external flanges (in fact, the entire bike is almost all
steel or aluminum), and many other features. Speaking of
aluminum, this bike has billet unlike any factory machine I've ever
seen. Take a look at the billet pieces below that are standard on
every California Scooter. |
| Billet upper and
lower triple tees. |
Billet rear axle
adjusters. |
| Billet seat
spring covers top and bottom. |
Billet risers
(reversible to adjust handlebar reach) and billet speedometer cover. |
| Billet hubs front
and rear (the wheels are interchangeable). |
Billet rear
caliper mount. |
| California Scooter Company invited
Robyn Smietan, a well-known Scooterista in southern California to
the manufacturing facility for a test ride. Here's a photo of
Robyn on a Classic in front of her Vespa. This is a great shot
for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it shows the
relative size of the California Scooter Company scooters. They
about the same size as a modern Vespa (the California Scooter
Company bikes only weigh 240 lbs), and parked side by side, the
wheelbase on both bikes is about the same.
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| Here's Robyn headed out to the test
area, passing by one of the company's assembly bays. Seidner
designed and fabricated all of assembly fixtures to assure correct
component alignment and efficient production.
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| So, did our Doctor of
Scooterology enjoy the ride?
I think the smile says it all...but don't
take my word for it. Check out the California Scooter Company Facebook
fans page and see for yourself what Robyn had to say about her ride on
the Classic! |
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A
cool shot of a '53 Mustang Pony, with the modern CSC motorcycles in the
background. And
here's another cool shot at Brackett Airfield in La Verne, CA...the old
and the new... 
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My take on these California
Scooter Company scooters is that they are pretty cool and they are a
very high quality product. The
company starts making production deliveries in March of this year, and I
think we are going to see a lot of them. They are inexpensive, they
are cool, and they offer endless possibilities for customizing. California
Scooter Company is located in La Verne, California. |
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