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Julian Tacon discovered the delights of ‘small-wheeled street surfing’ in an unusual manner. Firstly, a twist n go was NOT his first experience on two wheels, neither did scoots via a traditional manually geared classic scooter.
In fact, 17 years ago his first steed was a trials bike, inspired by an initial interest in Motocross. As time passed, Julian’s interest in two-wheeled machines expanded, encompassing sportsbikes. Working as a paint booth technician he gained both an appreciation and working knowledge of ALL things with two wheels and an engine.
Although Julian still prefers his superbike for all manner of thrills, tricks and treats – some legal, some questionable – as his experiences and knowledge of engineering and mechanical know-how grew so did his awareness of ‘other’ two-wheeled machines, namely auto-scoots. In all honesty it would have been rude for him not too!!
Firstly he obtained a crash damaged Sym Attila, with a vague idea of it becoming a project bike. It has been running for the last 12 months or so with no body or panel work.
A Gilera Runner fx 125 found its way into his ownership. His initial idea was to give it a bit of a make-over and then move it on, with a bit of an injection of cash into his bank account too. After giving the grey cells a bit of overtime – trying to come up with pretty much a unique, exclusive and one off theme – he put his skills to the test. The Runner was transformed from its stock factory livery into a replica of the Yamaha TT superbike, ‘V&M’, as piloted by TT record-breaker Dave Jefferies.
Although Julian is a highly skilled paint technician, creating the race replica on the scooter tested his abilities to the absolute maximum – not to mention taking considerably more time than expected. Never mind, the end result made all the time, trouble and effort worthwhile. To say the least, the V&M scoot IS both a head turner AND a one off machine, which is pretty much what Julian set out to create. Job done then!
Given the power, performance and reliability of a standard Gilera motor, he opted to leave that particular department exactly as the factory
 intended. Well, if it’s not broken why fix it? Besides, it wouldn’t really look right for a TT race replica to be broken down at the side of the road, due to failure of after-market goodies, now would it?
Superbikes are Julian’s first love, though since building the V&M race replica, auto-scoots are now, for him, a very close second. He’s already got the bug, with a couple more projects in the pipeline for the very near future. To fund them, the V&M Runner is up for sale for a very reasonable £2,200. If you fancy a unique scooter you could do a lot worse than this funky looking machine. •
Mark S.
This Feature is in “Twist & Go Magazine Issue No. 18
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