Vespa
Exceptional 1275-powered/front disk brake yet stock-looking Bugeye Sprite for sale!
Now SOLD to Pete of New York! Congratulations on taking home our 328th Bugeye sold!
Looking for a superb modified and more useable, more reliable Bugeye Sprite that still looks completely stock? If so, this is a great one to consider!
Meet “Willis,” (AN5L 47705), a superb 1960 Bugeye that we have known since about 2013, when we bought the car, upgraded it, and sold it to a client in Connecticut. When he was done with it, we bought it again, and sold it to a client in Idaho, in 2016 with 774 miles showing. That customer made the great drone video while the car was in Idaho’s wide open spaces, so you can see how this Bugeye looks from 30,000 feet in the video below:
The car then went to Maine, changed from Minilites to original steel disk wheels and joined a stunning private collection of other classics for a while (without getting much use) and from there I was able to buy it again. I love this car. It has always been one of the better restorations, and it drives and looks great. The car now shows a mileage of 2,305 so there has only been 1,500 miles since this car left us in 2016 – it still looks quite fresh.
I made a drive video today and you can see it starts easily (even when cold), runs smoothly up and down through the revs, and stops really well (the rear brakes are working too ((always nice)) as evidenced by the rolling handbrake test you can see in the video).
Like all classic British cars, there is a punch list, and this one is pretty short… the dashboard turn signal indicator is not working so we need a new flasher unit… and the horn is not working, so we need to figure out which link in the chain is not functional. These are pretty common challenges that are easy for us to address.
The new owner might also want us to refresh all the hydraulics before we ship the car, to zero-out the always ticking hydraulics-are-about-to-start-leaking clock. There is no tonneau present, and these are pretty much essential. And of course, we would be delighted to upgrade this great car even further with a five speed/rear disk brake/ supercharger/ aluminum radiator package!
Every time Willis comes here, he gets a little better (and he’s already quite good)!
Prior upgrades include twin-tipped muffler, flip forward nose, exhaust header, sway bar, good top, three point seat belts, side curtains, LED light kit, solid state electronic fuel pump and more!
This is a special cars, because most of the fleet is aging and needing more and more after the past 10 years, but this one just keeps getting better! Call or email if you are interested in adopting Willis!
What’s this switch with a cable attached?
It seems more and more common for people to call and say their Sprite heater blower is not working. This is often because they ancient heater fan control switch is no longer working, and sometimes because people don’t have a sense of how these dinosaurs operate. So here is a video to describe the proper operation of Sprite Mark one and two heater control cables and switches.
These switches are counter-intuitive. One would think that pulling the “H” knob gets you heat. In reality, pulling the H closes the air door and blocks air flow through the heater box, effectively setting your sophisticated Sprite cockpit air control command center on “recirculate” which is a bit of a joke since these cockpits leak fresh air through every seam and hole. Alas, closing the flap in the heater I suppose has some use if you wanted to block off a cloud of noxious fumes from entering into your heater as you travel down the motorway… but those fumes will all just travel around your leaking sidecurtains anyway. These cars are so far from air tight that this is all quite humorous.
In any event, most Sprites we see don’t have these flaps hooked-up anyway, and so we just sell a blower motor power switch and knob that looks original when installed in the dashboard. With our switch, you can’t tell there is no cable attached unless you poke around under the dashboard or behind the blower motor and this is what I use on my own personal cars.
Bugeyeguy in Hagerty Drivers Club Magazine
In the Summer of 2015, our passion-based Spritely business reached a major fork in the road, when our landlord needed his space back and our Bugeyes became homeless. The Quonset Hut across the street from our shop was for sale though, and while it seemed entirely appropriate to put curvey little cars into a curved building, once the ink dried and the building was mine, I now had a lot of broken cars to restore and a broken 1951 building to restore as well. See photo above… this was a rough hut.
The home of a glass blowing studio when I came along, 59 North Harbor Street was originally a storage building for the wooden forms for the iron foundry across the street. The metal roof leaked badly. But the foundation was bulletproof and the vibe was right, (or one day would be right, I prayed) so off we went on a massive building rehab project that left Bugeyes and building materials scattered everywhere.
Fast forward to today… our restored Q-hut has now launched 324 Bugeye adventures, for wonderful clients all around the world. We are making a lot of people very happy, drivers and spectators alike. Each one of our cars is an evangelist for a different way to interact with conveyance. Our drivers arrive with a smile, and they are making a lot of other people smile along the way. It has now become quite routine, for example, to be rolling along in the right lane in a Bugeye, while a spectator in the left lane is leaning out the passenger shooting a video to share with friends.
“Look what I saw on the highway today!
These cars touch people’s lives, and we are honored to have the opportunity to make them work better than they did when new. We are currently building a Bugeye for the daughter of a dad who lost his Bugeye in the Paradise fire a few years back. We recently put a Bugeye in the hands of a client whose health challenges accelerated his need to fulfill his bucket list NOW. And we look forward to the next 324 people we have yet to meet whose lives will be similarly transformed.
The Hagerty Drivers Club Magazine piece that just came out (featured here) is an acknowledgment of what we have created, fueled by passion for a wonderful little sportscar that was last manufactured in 1960. We are honored to arrive at this moment in our journey, and we look forward to supporting you on yours.
Thank you for helping us to arrive at this very special moment. And we have a lot more fun and excitement to come!
If you haven’t already seen it, you can read all seven pages of the Hagerty article in the reader below.
1959 Bugeye Sprite driver for sale!
Now SOLD to Geoff in Indiana, who will soon drive Chap back to Indianapolis from our shop! Congratulations! Happy retirement! Our 325th sold!
This is “Chap,” (AN5L 15917) a 1959 Bugeye driver in Lotus colors, named after Colin Chapman. This is a nice car that turns heads. If you are looking for a sharp car at a good price, give this one a serious look! It has lots of curb appeal!
The car is 948 powered with a four speed transmission and front disk brakes. It came from California. The flip forward nose makes engine access a delight. The wind wings and wind blocker on the roll bar keeps the cockpit quieter. It has a smoke gauge too, so you can tell if you have let the smoke out. This seems to be one of the all time favorite classic British car jokes… but our job is to make sure there is no smoke in anyone’s experience of this car!
The car also has a German speedo hanging under the combo gauge under the dash. I am not sure if this is a joke from the prior owner too, because the original speedo in the car works fine.
The car is ready, with a new battery and drives nicely. We can further upgrade and/or modify the car for the new owner, including removing the smoke gauge and putting in an ammeter, for example, or a clock or voltmeter depending on your preference.
There’s a smart cubby in front of the shift lever, nice to store your wallet and phone when on a drive. Our larger dash mirror is in place, a good upgrade. And there is already an electric fuel pump installed. A radiator expansion tank is also present, a nice upgrade from a later Sprite.
We can remove the under dash speedo, and/or you can tinker with these details yourself. It’s a good car and a solid car, and we look forward to finding “Chap” a new home.
The car was serviced a year ago by the prior owner and came back with 175 compression numbers in all cylinders, a great sign of a good engine, and it shows… the car is fun to drive! Give a call if you would like to make Chap your own!
Ducky, the Larricks and Bugeyeguy in the NY Times
The nice folks at The New York Times just published a great story about road-tripping in classic cars, featuring “Ducky” and the Larricks. We’ve included a copy of the article below, but if you would like to view it on The New York Times page, you can do so by clicking here (If you click over to the Times site, you may need to sign up to create a free account.)
This was our greatest reliability run ever, and our team did an awesome job building a car to make this epic 4000 mile trip.
