“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em”.. This 1964 Bianchi Avanti Sport Folding Moped is on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,000. It’s been in storage in West Greenwich, Rhode Island since 1974 and is a one-owner bike. This 70-pound bike will fold up so you can toss it in your trunk or pickup, drive to a car show, and pull it out and ride it around all day, since it gets 175 mpg! And, being a 1964 model, it’ll most likely be allowed in the show, too!
The photos aren’t the best, but the bike looks like it’s in great cosmetic shape. It hasn’t been started since 1974 so you’ll have to take it to a sewing machine mechanic.. er.. I mean, a motorcycle shop to have the engine looked at, I’m sure. Who knows, it may start using the normal procedure (drain gas, add new gas, install new spark plug, spew out several cuss words, enjoy a couple of scraped knuckles, etc.).. Here’s one running in a little video on YouTube. Cool!
Well, it really does fold up! It would be great to throw this thing in your RV or even in the back of your pickup, van, or SUV for camping weekends with the family. The kids will absolutely love riding this thing through the campground, if they can wrestle it away from you long enough to actually ride it! But, as my dad found out once in the early-1980s, as he was riding his recently-found Honda 100 to work and was stopped at a stop light, 6′-2″ tall, grown men on little motorcycles look a little strange. Someone in a pickup called out, “Hey, lard a**, ya got a big enough bike there?”..
This is what it’ll look like when it’s either folded on purpose, of when you run into a toy poodle.. Of course, the toy poodle will be unharmed; maybe not so much the Bianchi. The seller says that the “tires are original and still hold air but it will come with 2 new, white walled tires, and 2 new inner tubes.” Here is a link to a gentleman’s website who restored one of these and it’s a beauty. I think this would be a super fun, little thing to have. And, being so old you could show it at vintage motorcycle shows and it would get a lot of interest. It’s small enough that it would be a nice winter restoration project without taking up a ton of room in your garage, or basement. I would love to ride this around car shows and bring it camping. How would you use this fun, folding bike?
Scotty, your humor escapes me:-)
I would cruise it around the neighborhood like a kid and probably giggle the whole time. Nice find.
My father had one of these in the mid sixties. Once he hit a cow. The cow was fine.
They say there’s 2 things you should only do at night ( so no one see’s you) Dating a lot-lizard and riding a mo-ped. Cool little thing, if you live in Bangkok, but truth be known, mo-peds didn’t do either job very well. They were lousy bicycles and lousy motorbikes. As we run out of gas, not any time soon, but it will happen, we could all be riding these things someday, but for now, with $2 something dollars/gallon, put that 8.1 V-8 Silverado to the floor! ( my friend’s Silverado dump truck with an 8.1 get’s 8.1 mpg,,,,coincidence?)Great find, but no thanks.
re: Scotty’s humor: Totally lightens the mood, he’s a character. :)
Thanks, Howard! I’ll add a third thing: riding a battery-powered minibike in public.
I rode it down to where a lot of the “Back to the 50s” car show folks are staying in hotels near our house and yeah, maybe if I wasn’t 6′-5″ tall it wouldn’t have felt so weird. Not to mention there is no license (or, title; still haven’t heard back from the seller; classic), and police everywhere.
In case our readers don’t know, it was Scotty G that bought the electric mini-bike featured here a while back.http://barnfinds.com/?s=electric+mini+bike
He is a bit on the lanky side, and to see him riding that would surely be a YouTube video in the making. Maybe with the cops chasing him,,,heck, this thing writes itself.
Scotty G,
Here in FL, if you have a 50cc or less, no drivers license or tag(license plate) is required. I don’t know about batt’ry powered bikes. Did you check with your local DMV for a possible exemption or waver?
They might treat it like a pedal bike.
just what I’m looking for to put in my motorhome.
Hey – nothin’ wrong with ridin’ the little bike – last month we had the big “Bikes and Blues Festival” here in Silver City and I attended . . . riding my 50cc.1962 Sears (Puch) scooter – with only 50cc I still parked with the Harleys and other big bikes and everyone smiled! I may do it again next year!
That’s a beauty, sir; thanks for sharing!