Scooterotica

I remember the stick and abuse, jeremy howlett got in the 80s his scooters were over looked at custom shows etc.... Not surprised he stuck it in the shed, if that happened now there would be uproar.....his scooters were well ahead of their time and love them or hate them his passion and commitment should not be questioned(he could have spent it on an xr3!!!!) it wasnt the money, he personally had great vision and great attention to detail, talking to don blocksidge last year he said jeremy was the only one who wouldnt take no for an answer and even made special jigs to hold the parts for don to engrave, thats why his scooters were that good and yes he was fortunate to have the money but much much more has been spent on recent scooters that were nowhere near as good!!!!! Be good to have jh back and maybe with a new creation.

hotwheels wrote:I remember the stick and abuse, jeremy howlett got in the 80s his scooters were over looked at custom shows etc.... Not surprised he stuck it in the shed, if that happened now there would be uproar.....his scooters were well ahead of their time and love them or hate them his passion and commitment should not be questioned(he could have spent it on an xr3!!!!) it wasnt the money, he personally had great vision and great attention to detail, talking to don blocksidge last year he said jeremy was the only one who wouldnt take no for an answer and even made special jigs to hold the parts for don to engrave, thats why his scooters were that good and yes he was fortunate to have the money but much much more has been spent on recent scooters that were nowhere near as good!!!!! Be good to have jh back and maybe with a new creation.

I couldn't agree more! I never understood the amount of abuse that was aimed at Jeremy Howlett just because he could afford to build what were in my opinion the best custom scooters ever created. It's easy to say he just threw money at these scooters but he sourced the best people out there to do the work and his attention to detail made sure it all came together beautifully unlike a lot of full blown customs around nowadays that just look an overly cluttered mess. I also find it ironic that he was labled a cheque book scooterist a criticism that has stuck till this day when all you have to do is look at how many tacky mega money never ridden Christmas trees covered with obscenely over priced tat are wheeled out of vans every August bank holiday on the Isle Of Wight.
I don't blame him turning his back on scooters after the amount of s**t he took but at the end of the day his creations made a massive impact on a lot of us involved with scooters that still keep us talking about him today and I personally would f@@king kill to get my hands on Wake and restore it to it's former glory and show the Scootering world what it's been missing and what a great loss this individuals scooters are to the world of customising as a whole. ...... Rant over!

+1 I would also love wake bad to see it in a sorry state of affairs I also would restore it's my ultimate scooter if any 1 knows if it's for sale or have jhs number pm me asap and I will come get it lol I wish......... sprit walker was better tho IMHO

byron wrote:...turned out it was another Spurgeon job from the 80s ~ "Vigilante". A full frame GP with extended forks, DJ205 motor, eerie dess base and Charles Bronson murals. It was in Scootering March, or maybe May '86 iirc [he had the original issue there, I would never have remembered that...]. Again, this one was looking a bit worn with age, and had some bodywork missing. But got it running and it passed the mot a couple of months back.

update on this ~ the owner had mentioned that he might sell; then today I was working on a lambretta, and we were talking about old norwich scooters, and his mate was the one that originally built Vigilante, and may well be interested in getting it back... which would be a happy ending.

For me Dazzle changed everything in the way I perceived scootering. There were some great custom scooters around before then but I think this related more to my experience than the Northern Soul based bikes before. I know everything wasn't like that but it felt like it.
Suddenly this lambretta was there and it was so far ahead of the competition. He rebuilt it and did it again... And again...and again. Then as a side project came the Nike racer, my favourite scooter of all time.
I never met Jeremy Howlett but to me he was scooter customisation back then and my expeience of scootering would be greatly diminished without his idiocyncratic contribution.

Sorry if my comments were misunderstood. The point I was trying to make was that brilliant as his scooters were, he never seemed to have any attachment to them whatever. Lets face it, spending what must have been an absolute fortune building the best scooter in the country and then destroying it the following year to use as the base for another project rather than buying another one is a bit odd. Back in the 80's you could pick up good lambrettas for a tiny fraction of the amount he must have spent customising them.

RICSPEED wrote:oh dear





well at least it still exists

where did u get these?

e type wrote: where did u get these?

they were taken by J H and posted on fase buk

oh ....i forgot to mention i sent J H a link to this thread

4 of the Blue Dazzle pics on his FB page were taken by me. Skeggy I believe, but it was so long ago I can't quite remember. What a Lambretta and even better, he still used the SIL badge on the horncast!