1961 Ariel Leader scooter, cl, ny, $4900

[chuck peterson]

Predecessor to the Honda tupperware PX800…or pch? I forget..anyway..

Cool scoot

https://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/mcy/d/port-washington-1961-ariel-leader/7382149456.html










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[JJ]

Now there's an interesting and cool vintage scooter!!

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

Not really a "scooter", more a fully enclosed motorcycle, like a Vincent Black Prince.

[acogoff]

    I like the little lever on the dash, not sure what it is, a mechanical high and low beam maybe. 

[Guzziman22]

Love it!  Want it!

[Cam3512]

That is so cool, and rare.  Price seems reasonable if it’s as advertised.

[g5guzzi]

    I like the little lever on the dash, not sure what it is, a mechanical high and low beam maybe. 

The lever on the dash allows adjustment of the headlight according to how much load you are carrying

Malc

[Groover]

Looks like a fun one!

[nick949]

I had one when I was a teenager. It is Not a scooter (and I like scooters). Most reliable bike I had - although that's not saying much.  Quiet, smooth, fast enough for 1960s English roads.

Nick

[Mr Pootle]

As others have said, this wasn't a scooter, but a motorbike.
Thinking back to the 60s, the only rides acceptable to mods were Vespas and Lambrettas. They went with the sharp Italian-style suits, though these usually came from the big tailoring factories in Leeds, rather than from Naples.
There were other scooters on the market. The Triumph Tigress and BSA Sunbeam were the British attempts to break into that market. They never caught on. The only guy I knew who had one later became a Conservative MP in the Thatcher government. So much for his street cred.
Toward the end of the 60s my sister had a Triumph Tina, a horrid little 100cc thing with automatic transmission. When I came home from university that or my dad's NSU Quickly were sometimes the only vehicles available to me.I can't remember ever seeing any other makes or models of scooter back in the 60s. But the Japanese step through bikes were starting to make inroads among my friends who were neither mod nor rocker.
I was a bit schitzoid. I had a Vespa, my dad and I shared a Norton 88. I'd often use the 88 in preference to the Vespa. It depended on who I was seeing on the evening. The girls usually preferred the Vespa.
I believe scooters had less cultural significance in the USA. Over here the mod/rocker thing was huge for a couple of years in the early/mid 60s. It was based on musical tastes and fashion. It was followed in the later 60s by the hippy/skinhead divide, similarly based on music and clothes. Meantime, in the more primitive area of Essex (think New Jersey, you boys out there in the former colonies) there were still teddy boys hanging on to the 50s, with their drape jackets and sideburns, listening to early Elvis, Jerry Lee and Little Richard.

[Canuck750]

A classy looking motorcycle!