Our Competitive Nature…

Competition improves the breed, and we sure have a lot of it going on in the scooter world.  Bill Murar is riding the Lake Erie Loop and the Cannonball Rally on a beautiful new powder blue California Scooter Classic.  Jim Petitti and his Raceway Services dealership are working on great things up in Salem, Oregon, and all those Alley Cats in Portland will soon see a California Scooter (or, I guess I should say, the rear end of a California Scooter!) in the mix.   And, as we mentioned here before, we have our very own motorcycle design competition for the next California Scooter model…it’s going to be a 125cc bike, but I can’t tell you much more beyond that (at least not yet!).   The local papers have picked up this exciting story, and here are excerpts from Rebecca Cho’s outstanding article…it’s running today in the Daily Bulletin and the San Bernardino Sun:

“I said, `You pick whatever you think is cool, you draw it and present it to us,”‘ said Steve Seidner, the motorcycle company’s president and chief executive officer. “I want some fresh ideas.”   Seidner said he conceived the idea for the contest in his desire to create a line of motorcycles that draws in a young demographic, or those from ages 18 to 35.  Contestants will be forced to think for the quickly growing green industry. California Scooter Co. says it makes bikes that can get more than 90 miles per gallon.  The company has sought to create a niche in the competitive motorcycle market with bikes that are retro in style, but modern in technology. The two-year-old company is a spin-off of Seidner’s Pro-One Performance Manufacturing Inc., which makes custom motorcycles for hard-core fans.

The scooter company’s first line involved bringing back the Mustang motorcycle, which hadn’t been produced in about 50 years. The Mustangs were a hit among bike enthusiasts 50 years old and older who could reminisce about the classic model’s heyday, Seidner said. But he he hopes to diversify his designs to include young people.   The winning design is planned to be revealed at a ceremony on July 16.

Steve Seidner and the Next Generation of Motorcycle Designers

So stay tuned, California Scooter fans, and we’ll bring you more info on each of these exciting competitions!