17-year-old Bryn Owen from Leicester showing off his Vespa 100 Special 100cc scooter, which has 34 mirrors and 81 lights on the front and back, all bought with his pocket money. These photographs were taken in July 1983.

His humble Vespa 50 Special (apparently fitted with a 100cc engine, presumably to carry the excess weight of the accessories!) created quite a stir back in the early 1980s, with first the Leicester Mercury, then the national press picking up on the story of him and his scooter.
Owen had a bit of an incident just after the Blue Peter appearance and managed to stick the Vespa in a ditch. “I got it home in bits and it was laid up a while as I also had a PX125 by then,” he said in a comment. “I eventually got round to a rebuild bigger and better than before and used a fixed lammie mudguard on the front so I could hang even more gear on it.

“I then sold it to a young lad who being 16 needed a 50cc motor in it, so I did a swap with my brothers 50cc motor, as you can imagine, it was painfully slow with that fitted. I remember selling it for £1,000 which at the time was crazy, I went out and bought a decnt car and had £750 change! I didn’t see the scooter again, I heard within a very short space of time the new owner had stripped it all down and it seems it came off the road very soon after so was probably scrapped.”