This my first review of a scooter in more than ten years of writing 2strokebuzz. My first scooter was a vintage Vespa and have pretty much stuck to what I know. I’ve taken a few spins on various modern scooters, and have been impressed by some, and not by others. The Blur impressed me.Just by way of disclaimer, before we get started, I just want to point out that even though I’ve been writing about scooters for ten years, I’m probably not the world’s top expert, especially when it comes to modern bikes, and I had a limited amount of time to try this bike out. What I do have to offer is an unbiased consumer impression, from the perspective of a longtime vintage scooterist, combined with a certain amount of research and knowledge, that I hope will be helpful to anyone reading this. Product reviews on the internet range from the amazingly technical and informed to the insipid, hopefully if you’re using this review to make a purchase decision, it will be clear where in that range this review fits and you will seek advice from other sources as well.
New scooters appear on the international market often, and usually by the time they arrive in the United States (if they ever do arrive here), they’ve been analyzed to death by the European press and we know all about them. 2strokebuzz has reported on several new bikes recently, in some cases before the manufacturers even announced them, but it will be months before we see a Piaggio MP3, for instance, in person. Kymco flying 2strokebuzz to a press junket in Taiwan for a long weekend seems realistic only when you compare it to the even-smaller odds of Piaggio flying me to Pisa.So when the chance to be the very first American “journalist” (sorry) to see and ride Genuine’s new Blur 150 fell in my lap a couple weeks ago, I did what anyone would do. I jumped at it. Then I procrastinated and sat on the story for one two three weeks, until the scooter was in shops and was old news, to finish the review.
Ever since Genuine announced this spring they’d be importing the PGO Bubu (as the Buddy) and PMX (as the Black Cat), we heard that more PGO models would follow. The Buddy arrived in early June to almost universally positive word-of-mouth. Genuine’s P.J. Chmiel had extensively test-ridden the PGO G-Max, and I hoped it would be the next Genuine model (though some held out hope for the three-wheeler). When the Blur was announced early this month, I correctly guessed its identity as the G-Max. (The Rattler, Genuine’s version of the PGO PMS, was apparently announced simultaneously, though we were a couple days late on that one). We talked to Roy Park at Genuine Scooters and he offered us a close look and a short ride at the No Direction Home rally in Minneapolis, a few days later.
Genuine Scooter Company, of Chicago Illinois, is a newer sister company of Scooterworks USA, who has been selling vintage scooter parts for almost 20 years. Genuine started up their company around the Stella, a rebadged LML Star, which is an Indian copy of the Vespa PX150. The Stella proved to be immensely popular, outselling similar scooters from Bajaj and even Vespa themselves. Unfortunately, LML was a bit unpredictable and occasional quality issues were followed by a labor lockout at the factory that have, barring a miracle at this point, brought an end to the model.Genuine was clearly thinking ahead, just as news of the LML labor strife appeared, they announced a similar deal with Motive Power Industry Co, Ltd., of Taiwan, maker of PGO scooters. Even though Asian scooters (aside from Japanese and Indian) have (mostly justifiably) developed a bad reputation in the United States, and several American importers, notably T’NG, have been burned by bad deals with Chinese suppliers, Kymco of Taiwan has built a solid and reputable operation here and worldwide, and PGO appears to parallel Kymco in many ways. Both engineer, design, and manufacture their own scooters, and both have a good worldwide reputation for quality and parts supply. Additionally, both brands feature model names that, in English, range from comical to downright embarrassing: Grand Dink, PMS, BuBu, Bet&Win… you get the idea. Though Kymco’s U.S. importer wisely changed some product names, Genuine took that idea a step farther and developed whole new identities for their scooters, better targeted to the U.S. market.
Design-wise, the bike is quite modern-looking, which I prefer to the many “retro” scooters out there. “Vintage” is great, “modern” is great, but I can’t get into “retro.” While not as “out-there” as the Italjet Dragster, which still looks futuristic ten years after its introduction, the style of the Blur mimics that of the popular Gilera Runner or the Peugeot Jet Force (both highly-regarded, but unavailable in the U.S.). While certain cues were clearly borrowed from each of those scooters, it’s unfair to call the Blur a “knock off” or “copy,” it is an entirely original, if a bit derivative, design, unlike the hundreds of “fake Vinos” out there.
The Blur also avoids the “plastic bodywork stuck to a black metal tube frame”-look of many modern scooters. It is plastic bodywork stuck to a black metal tube frame of course, the wide orange center channel bar which appears to be a bit of exposed frame is more or less decorative plastic. Nevertheless, the Blur has a very solid feel, good paint, and the build quality appears high, there are no sloppy punch-outs or wobbly plastic. The decals don’t match the paint exactly, and seem a bit flimsy, but as I said earlier, all the easier to peel
