Take one ‘old skool’ graffiti artist, then add a little technical expertise from his mate into the mix, and you have the recipe to dish up a visually striking, kitted Vespa.
Craig Meers hails from Wolverhampton; his scooter story starts out very much like that of many other scooterists. His older brother rode a Mod-style scooter, so it was perhaps inevitable that the influence would rub off on to Craig, which it did at a very early age – however, he wasn’t going to end up following that same Mod path.
His first scooter was a Vespa PK50 fitted with a PX180 engine and he attended his first scooter rally – Rhyl – around 1990-ish. He holds fond memories of those early days – in particular of one NSRA event at Southport where too much alcohol resulted in him swinging drunkenly off a bridge. To cap it all, he was also asked to remove his scooter from the campsite for having the music on too loud! He’s grown up a bit since then and doesn’t do many rallies – especially camping ones.
KEEPING IT OLD SKOOL
Craig is well-known and established as a graffiti street artist and airbrusher under his alter ego name of Skema – in fact, if you look at the pictures accompanying this article, not only did Craig do the ‘old skool’ style graffiti paintwork and murals on his scooter, but he also did all the graffiti seen at the photoshoot location in the background.
And better than that, he even got paid for doing it under a commission from the local council! So if you happen to be in the Wolverhampton area, watch out for Craig’s handiwork, which can be found in various tunnels, skate parks and other municipal areas.
So given Craig’s background it’s hardly surprising – probably more inevitable – that graffiti would eventually find its way on to his scooter. And this came about after he purchased a Vespa PX125 Disc for the sum of £1200. But although Craig is a skilled graffiti artist his mechanical skills aren’t up to the same standard, so he called upon his good friend and scooter technical guru, Alan ‘Gibbo’ Gibbs to help him out mechanically with the fitting of a 180DR kit, a Sterling exhaust plus a few other tweaks.
Body-wise, the only modification was the addition of a stereo console, as Craig is heavily into both hip-hop and drum ‘n’ bass music.
All in all, the engine and paintwork took around six months for Gibbo and Craig to complete, with it all being finished in recent months – Craig is still running it in, so won’t comment on the performance at the moment.
Overall, the project has cost Craig around £1500 – which ain’t bad when you consider how much he paid for the scooter in the first place. It’s a visually stunning-looking bike and if you’re riding around the Wolverhampton area, you can’t fail to notice it out on the streets – keep your eyes open for it.
Read the FULL feature with more pictures in the Aug/September issue of Classic Scooterist! Click here to purchase your copy.
