Vespa paintwork – all about paint
The greatest ideas are often born from necessity. Moritz Hämmerlein had decided early on in 2012 to complete restore his battered Vespa V 50, including a new paint-job. The bewildering choice combined with a lack of reliable information on this subject drove him to despair, endangering completion of his restoration project. Which colours were original to the V 50 model? Which were the most popular and widespread shades? Should he stick to the factory pallet, use a RAL paint or even the produce of a car manufacturer? Red, yellow or blue? Powder coating or a more conventional option? Questions over questions.
A respray is quite cost intensive and also requires a lot of work (complete disassembly, preparation, sand-blasting, beating-out and application). On the one hand you want paintwork that you are 100% happy with and on the other a colour that is effective on the relatively small surface area that a Vespa possesses. Moritz found numerous pictures of differently coloured Vespa models while searching the internet, but without the proper colour code information. This led to Moritz keeping a RAL colour code chart in his backpack for immediate identification of the newly-discovered paints colour. If he liked what he saw, a photograph was then taken which was then registered and filed along with its corresponding identification code. In time this developed into a small archive, sparking the idea for his vespafarben.de website (german only so far).
Moritz wanted to provide a service helpful to other Vespisti faced with the same challenges during their own restoration projects.
"Due to the many 'thank-you E-mails' and other signs of heightened interest in my efforts I believe that I was on the right track and have already been able to assist many Vespa owners with their choice of paint.”
The ultimate goal is to have every type of original PIAGGIO paint to be identified and represented on this website.
Do you think you could help Moritz with his quest? If you are 100% sure of the exact identity and origin of your scooters paintwork, whether original or RAL? Send a (colour) picture of your scooter along with the paints ID code etc. to [email protected] as all help and support is greatly appreciated!
