Garelli Comes And Goes Quickly

By Bud Wilkinson

Before March 8, I’d neither heard of a Garelli nor envisioned myself emulating the guys on the “American Pickers” television show. I didn’t know that the Italian brand of motorcycles and mopeds was founded by Adalberto Garelli in 1919. Italian motorcycles to me meant Ducati, Moto Guzzi, Aprilia and MV Agusta, not Garelli. But it was Garelli – a 1986 Monza GT model with a two-stroke, 50cc engine – that kept me busy this week. I almost wish it hadn’t.

This tale of joy and lament started on March 8 when I rode to lunch at Hometown Pizza in Harwinton. I normally park in front when operating on four wheels, but instead rode the bike around the building so that I could park on the west side heading out. There’s a rental house adjacent to the parking lot on the east side. In passing, I noticed a woman cleaning the basement garage and what looked to be a small motorcycle parked outside.

After lunch, I walked over to admire the bike. The name “Garelli” was splashed across the gold gas tank. Closer inspection revealed the year and model. It wasn’t a motorcycle, rather a moped that looked like a motorcycle. The woman said someone else had offered to cart it off. Not having an idea of its value, I quickly called Greg Bidou, the brains behind RIDE-CT’s restoration of a 1969 Triumph T100R Daytona in 2008. He advised, “Offer her $10.” I did and she accepted. With the help of friends Bill Smith and Bruce Wilcox, we immediately brought it home.

Over the next few days, I tinkered with it. A petcock with a broken handle was removed. A check of the gas tank showed the inside to be in good shape, but the moped needed a rear brake cable, left foot pedal and a cover for the headlight. The woman said the motor wouldn’t turn, but it did. Online research turned up little info on the defunct Garelli brand or the particular model, but parts appeared easy to locate. A new petcock, for instance, would cost $13 to $30. New tires would run $20 each. Did I really want to invest in another project that might cost me more than I might get out of it?

By Tuesday night, conceding that I might never get around to getting it running, I decided to dangle the Monza GT on Craigslist to see if I could reap a quick profit. Greg thought that it might fetch $200 if it were running. It wasn’t, so I cautiously listed it for “$90 obo.” That seemed fair. “Picked” for $10 and sold for $90 would be an $80 profit.

Within two hours, I received five offers, including one for $125. I spoke with the guy who offered $125 and told him to get it the next day. More offers came in overnight. By the time I sat down at my laptop with my morning coffee on Wednesday, there were more than a dozen offers, several hitting or topping $100.

Wanting to be polite, I responded to each and got startling reactions. One person said he would have paid “double or even triple if I knew I just needed to put out a price.” Triple would be $270. Another person offered $175. A caller said $225. With my happiness over the quick sale diminishing, I told the bidders that I was a man of my word and that I wouldn’t renege – the bike was going to the guy for $125.

Joe Gummer, who had offered “double or even triple,” emailed back that honesty is his policy as well. “Don’t chalk it up as a loss, you made more than it was worth to you,” he wrote, but only after revealing “if you sold this in Boston right now you could easily get $500 or more, even in its current state. This is one of the more desirable mopeds ever made, and they are quite rare.”

Gummer grew up in Canton but lives in Boston and has become part of what is a tight-knit moped scene. Mopeds have become popular lately among college students “because of both the vintage feel that is oh-so-appealing to today’s hipster youth and the ability to ride for a week while spending only $4 in gas,” he explained.

Steve Penhallow arrived at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday to claim the Garelli. He’s a moped collector, owns about 50 of them, and has a small moped sales and repair business in Worcester, Mass. called Hill City Mopeds. He handed over $125 and we loaded the Monza GT into his trunk. I told him that the offers had reached $275 and that the moped might worth $500, but that the deal stood.

He noted the Garelli’s features – a top tank, five-star mag rims and a front fairing – as well as its rarity and responded, “$500 to $600 all day. It’s so much different from a ‘moped’ moped. I’ve never seen one up close.” Penhallow estimated that to getting it on the road will cost “no more than a couple hundred bucks, and that’s putting everything on it.”

Penhallow said he plans to keep the bike, not fix it to sell, and was pleased that it didn’t go elsewhere. “I’m here to restore them – not rip them apart and put (the parts) on another bike,” he said. Without being prompted, he brought up “American Pickers” and singled out the series for driving up prices. “This year I’ve seen mopeds go for more than I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Any little thing now, people think it’s worth a ton of money.”

I’m a regular viewer of “American Pickers,” so why didn’t I?

(Originally published in “The Republican-American” on March 17, 2012.)