King of the Clubman's? - Lambretta scooter - Taylor Tuned 33hp - touring rally exhaust

King of the Clubman's? - Lambretta scooter - Taylor Tuned 33hp - touring rally exhaust

This right here is a 33hp RB252 Lambretta fitted with a Clubman exhaust, which pulls 4.4 gearing, cruises at 20mph in 5th gear at just 1800rpm and can be rolled on in the same gear to hit just under 90mph when you stretch its legs. If you don’t quite comprehend what this engine is achieving, it can be very easy to overlook it. But once you start to look at the numbers, and then actually ride the thing… the story starts to unravel.

I’ll cut to the chase and go straight in with the numbers... this test ride took place on an RB252 engine, running a filtered 39mm Dellorto (that isn’t the recommended carb/size – that’s just what this owner had available)a 5-speed gearbox with 4.4 final drive, and is fitted with a clubman box pipe. It kicks out circa 33hp and 26ft-lbs but the most astonishing thing is the fact that you can ride this scooter in 5th gear at 20mph (1800rpm) and then roll on the throttle and take it up to an easy 80mph, and beyond that, if you don’t run out of road! So the scooter has a 60-70mph speed range in just one gear! Of course, you can go to the other end of the spectrum with it and just launch the thing through every gear, and believe me… it pulls! But not in the usual way often associated with tuned scooters where there is a rather underwhelming first few thousand RPM, before the thing launches like a scalded cat and rips your arms off. No, this is a torque-driven power delivery and from only 3000rpm it already has 15ft-lbs, 4000rpm is 20ftlbs, and it peaks at 6000rpm with 26ft-lb. The bhp peak is at 7000rpm, but will rev on to 8000rpm. This combination of torque and bhp, balanced in that way, is what contributes to it being possibly the smoothest and most flexible/user-friendly engine I have ever ridden (as far as classic air-cooled 2-strokes go). Oh, and did I mention that it can also return up to 60mpg if ridden sensibly?

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