Then many agents were appointed and amongst them, just to name a few, were Brian Collins Motors at 84-86 Church Street, Parramatta, Motor Cycle City Pty. Ltd. at 1230 Canterbury Road, Punchbowl, Morton for Motor Cycles at 196 Condamine Street, Balgowlah and Vic Lyon Motor Cycles at 100 Parramatta Road, Homebush - so a lot of untrained agents with inexperience in servicing Lambrettas.
Lambretta Concessionaires were obviously trying very hard to replicate the success they'd had in the UK and tried to diversify just as they had there. In 1970 they announced that Frank Matich was to become a Director of Lambretta (Australasia) and make his version of the Maclaren sports cars, in Artarmon, that Trojan was making in the UK. Lambretta A/Asia were also awarded the Postmaster General contract, and was notified on 15th January 1970 for the sum of $13,330. Source: nla.gov.au/nla.news-page26030873 Despite a lot of publicity by Lambretta (Australasia) Pty. Ltd. the sale of Lambrettas was falling due to the Japanese invasion of cheap reliable motor scooters and cycles and by February 1971, Lambretta (Australasia) Pty. Ltd. closed its doors (Source, Tasmania archives) . By 1971/72 the operation of Lambretta building in Italy itself had ceased, although this is not the end of the importation story in Australia. |
In the mid 70's Spanish built Lambrettas were being imported and In the late 70's and early 80's, Paul John Scooter Centre of Perth were importing Servetas, which were still badged as Lambrettas for the Australian market.
On 11th August 1980, Stanco of Melbourne, started importing SIL GP's and built a dealership network around Australia. All the way to the late 90's various companies continued to try and import and make a success of Lambretta Scooters. However, with the closure of the Indian 2-wheel production line in 1998, under the control of SIL, this all finally came to a close. In 2017, "Lambretta" scooters were imported, once more, into Australia. However, as there is no continuity between any of the original factories and the company currently using the name the LCoA does not recognise the modern scooters as a Lambretta, They are, quite simply, a badge engineered rebodied Kymco. |