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Well if you would like to track it down then Email its registration number to

STRANGE BUT TRUE.

My brother and I both owned Rumi Tipo Sports in the early 60s.

My brothers registration was 233 ALT and mine was 330 XMG.

I was chatting to Peter Caisley on the internet regarding parts etc when he asked me

about the Tipo Sport pictured in the "pictures from yesteryear" link (233 ALT).

I told him it was my brothers Rumi which he sold cc 1967.

I of course asked why he wanted to know, he replied I know where it is

now.

Great I said where is it, I've got it Peter said.

WOW! I thought, after all those years my brothers Rumi has turned up.

Peter then sent me a copy of the log book and some pics of the scooter now.

And there it was in the log book my brothers name and address.

After more discussion Peter went on to say he bought it from a bloke a couple

of roads up who saw his Blue Tipo standing outside his house, just wondered if

you wanted it for spares the chap said to Peter.

Peter then told me he bought 233 ALT originally for spares for his blue Tipo

Registration 330 XMG.

I have to admit when he told me that I come over a little faint.

Unfortunately Peter does not remember what happened to my beloved 330 XMG

but it was nice to hear he had it for a while.

Peter still has 233 ALT. Its now his cafe racer which he is developing.

Paul Stokes

Paul Stokes

My first sight of a Rumi was in Richmond Park. I was sailing a little model boat on

one of the many ponds in the Park with my dad. ( I was about 10 years old).

Whilst enjoying my outing I noticed a funny noise coming from the road, I looked up

to see this little scooter with this big bloke riding it.

I asked my dad (who was very knowledgeable regarding anything with an engine)

said, its a Moto Rumi Little Ant, funny name I thought, Little Ant.

I remember it was the very early E model, made from steel, not alluminium.

For some reason from that day I was hooked on Rumis.

When I was 14 I still had the urge to own one. I found myself with my brother

sitting next to the Great West Road in Chiswick waiting for the regular Rumi to appear

screaming past, probably a Bol d'or, It was fast and gold.

This went on sadly for a couple of years until we were 16 when I sent my dad to Stephens

Scooter Mart in Richmond to purchase and ride home my Blue Rumi Tipo Sport.

I could not wait to hear it coming down the road, when it did I was excited beyond

belief.

Soon after David, my twin brother got hold of his Red Tipo and we passed our riding test

and went on to persuade three other friends to join the fold.

We all had a great time riding our Rumis until stupidity took over and we sold them.

Then I grew up and realized I how much I missed owning a Rumi and bought another one

way back in 1978. I've still got it and wouldn't part with it for the world.

Why I chose a Rumi I still don't really know.

Maybe it was something within or a desire to have the best.

Joss Ollett

Aged 15 I trusted my older Lambretta owning brother with £50 saved selling papers.

Every aspiring mod had to have a Lambie or Vespa. Julian came back with a Rumi Formichino

"You want something small fast and sexy" he was saying as I stared, smitten by this lovely

unknown scooter which must have come from outer space..I'd never seen one, or anything

like it (still haven't). Then we started it up.

Nice noise eh, little brother?"

Several neighbours had already emerged to give a different opinion, and couldn't believe

their eyes as the blue haze cleared to reveal my new true love....

As soon as I was legal I spent hours in the summer evening of 1964 scaring every cat and dog

in a 10 mile radius of Barking.

My friend Richard Dunne bought one, so an unholy choir of Rumi exhaust notes toured the

Borough. (it was called Barking before we terrified the dogs...).

Then a trade-up to a Tipo, faster, smokier, noisier!! Seventh heaven for two years until Swansea

University meant a sad parting..

20 years later, a normal life has followed, until I find myself following a Rumi trailer in Bromley!.

The old flame is incandescent in one second flat, must have one again.

Another 10 years with Rumi No 1 on my letter to Santa and I find one, no two or three!!

And I also find a bunch of crazed adolescent fantasists in their 50s...Welcome to the

Moto Rumi Club.

Thanks Julian you changed my life!!!!

How I fell in love. (Carl Liebold)

There I was, spectating at the 2003 Motogiro d'Italia, a vintage time trial in Italy. The route covers 1000 miles in 5 days. To be eligible, you must ride a motorcycle made in 1957 or earlier. And that moto must be 175 cc or less! Let's be clear, this is a 1000 mile road rally riding a bike with about the same power as a moped! This is one of the premier vintage motorcycle events in Italy.

Where did this event come from? After WW2, there was a great need for transportation in Italy. Not only was the whole country ready to travel for work, but the country was also moving from an agricultural to an industrial economy. So people were very interested in small motorcycles as affordable transportation. After the war there were many small companies looking to rebuild themselves and to make new products. And so, more than 100 companies started making motorcycles! This being Italy, where motorsports are an obsession; the best of these companies raced their bikes to prove their quality to the public. One of the best ways to prove your motorcycle was to race it in long distance races and there were several, like the Milan e Taranto and the Motogiro d'Italia. These races ran annually, until 1957 when there was a major accident in a car race and the government stopped these events. In recent years the Italians have revived some of these events as vintage rallies. In the US we would call these TSD or Time - Speed - Distance rallies. The object is to complete the course in a set amount of time. And there are checkpoints along the way, where you time is checked (and they verify you are following the proper route) and sometimes there are tests of your skill. Today these are wonderful recreations of the original events with beautiful old machines, old and young drivers and fans lining the roads cheering the competitors.

At the 2003 event I went as a spectator. I am a fan of old Ducati motorcycles, and Ducati is a major sponsor of the Motogiro. I went on a modern bike and followed the vintage riders throughout the event. It was a wonderful tour through Italy, surrounded by great friendly people and fantastic vintage machines.

Now, in the mid 80's I raced a Yamaha two stroke. I have a real affection for these bikes. But since the early 90's I have been a for of Italian bikes, primarily Ducatis.

So there I was enjoying the Motogiro, when I hear the distinct sound of an 180 degree parallel twin two stroke so similar to my old racing Yamaha. It is a ripping howl that ends with a dinging ring. And I turn and see this beautiful old machine, very Italian with an engine so similar to the ones I used to race. I fell in love instantly. It was a Rumi. The rider of this rare motorcycle was Sascha Kripgans. Even in Italy Rumi's are quite rare. The company stopped making them in 1962. But the Italians remember and Sascha was greeted as a hero wherever he went. And while many riders can't make the distance Sascha made it through the whole event. I must admit, I cheered him on the whole way and became a one man fan club. I learned much from Sascha about Rumi's right there at the event. After the competition was over he even let me ride his prized Rumi around the hotel parking lot! I was hooked.

Upon return to the California, I immediately started my search for a Rumi. Actually, although these are rare bikes, there are a very limited number of people who truly love them, and thus I found several available. After about 4 months of research, shopping, learning and negotiation; I bought a fabulous one. Well, it's fabulous to me, but it needs a lot of work.

TERRY DAVIES

During 1960 I was riding an Itom Tabor Sports (65cc), a fine little machine but uncomfortable for anything other than short journeys. It would see off most Vespas and Lambrettas from the lights, so they didn’t attract me; they also lacked any "individuality" – they needed 26 spotlights and an 8 foot whippy aerial to give them that! The elephantine proportions of machines such as the Heinkle Tourist, Zundapp Bella, Puch Alpine and Maicoletta held no appeal at all.

I lived in Fulham at the time and became friendly with a chap named Paddy Maher who had a Formichino, which seemed to me to have "individuality" built-in. The Burgess silencers he had fitted also gave it a sound like nothing else. He let me have a couple of rides on it and I was hooked.

I visited Stephens Scooter Mart but they weren’t interested in a part exchange. Very sadly I rode home, passing on the way Dresda Autos in Putney Bridge Road where I saw they had on the pavement outside their shop a blue Formichino with fairing. It needed some work (eg seized front brake and bald tyres) but they agreed to take my Itom in part exchange and the Rumi was mine.

My initial "gut reaction" was vindicated and over the next few years the Rumi never let me down on daily commuting and holiday trips to Edinburgh and Lands End. The fairing was pretty ugly but gave much-needed weather protection during the winters and was easily removed for the summers (which were, of course, longer and hotter back then!).

What made me want a Rumi

A friend of my elder brother who’s name was Johnny Towning and lived round the corner from us in Bonamy Street, bought in 1960 a new Blue Tipo Sport, registration No YYU 798 from Ross Cycles & Autos in the Old Kent Road. He later got a fairing for it, and fitted Burgess silencers (circa 61). I used to stand at the bus stop on my way to school looking out for him to come by. It was the sound , and a ride on the pillion of this Rumi that made my mind up, I would get one when I was old enough !

We then moved to the top of Peckham Rye when I bought my Rumi from Stephens Scooter Mart in October 1963, and have owned it ever since. I knew a couple of other riders in that area, one of them ( Robin Cook ) had a shed full of parts! I wonder what happened to them ?

Brian Sherwood

Ian Skinner

I bought a Rumi motorcycle in 1992 and first Rumi scooter as a wreck in 1999. My Rumi introduction was in 1958 in the Bournemouth area. One Sunday morning I was sitting beside my dad in his Triumph Mayflower driving across the Avon Causeway, closely followed by one of his friends, riding a strange looking light blue and noisy 'scooter'. We carefully engaged the second bend, a rip snorting left handed hairpin, only to be over taken by the Rumi with it's unfortunate pilot spread-eagled in the air like Coyote in the 'Roadrunner' cartoons, heading toward a pile of bovine waste. Bulls Eye!

My next Rumi encounter came in 1962/63. A work mate had a Tipo Sport. It really was a very early psychedelic expression, sporting a mauve body, blue leg shields with white painted crash rails and an empty silencer. As the Rumi was really a 'biker's scooter', we the biking dirty-finger-nailed mob took this steed under our wing. It was the weekly and sometimes daily maintenance involved, that provided us with vast experience of intensive Rumi-Care, cleaning and re-setting points, cleaning plugs, replacing oil seals, especially the one behind the fly-wheel. Dardani and Large the local dealer lost out big time in doing any work on this machine. Still, there were plenty of other Rumi scooters and at least three Junior Gentlemen motorcycles shattering the nightly peace around the Square in Bournemouth, from which to make their fortune.

The years passed. In 1992 a dilapidated ex-racing Junior Gentleman with a box of road-going parts came my way. Over the next few years I renovated the bike and in 1998 it went to Bernard Gogly the French Rumi Club's spares supremo. Joss kept saying to me "Why don't you have a go at a Formichino?". Well I have, FOUR of them, a Normale, a Sport, a Bol d'Or and perhaps the fourth will end up as a triple? Good old Joss, what would we all have done without you?

Why did I buy a Rumi? It just happened, that’s all!

Just 16 and going to school on a Lambretta Li 150, joined the East Birmingham Scooter club and met a lot of other Lambretta owners, Vespas too. One guy had a really old Ld 125 until he turned up on a Rumi, it looked kinda; perfect somehow, in every way, difficult to explain to a 'normal" person perhaps, then he started it up taking the emotions to another level, pleasure knocking on the door of life's ultimate. Dad, guess what I've seen and guess where there're selling em, dear old longs suffering Dad parted with what was obviously cash hard come by having been impressed 'maybe' by the threepenny bit trick on the crank case, it's new owner threw a "sicky" from school in order to start the running in process. Sitting aboard my very own Rumi, it felt right, it looked right and it sounded fantastic. We went thousands of miles together without a hitch until the dreaded gearbox started deselecting itself but not before many trips to the Isle of White, I wonder if the Leconfield Hotel is still in business? there and back in a day on one occasion (from Brum) and not a spanner in me pocket, no water proofs and next to no money. Well thanks to the Rumi club and in particular one Graham Fisher I've now got another Rumi, this one will be sold only when I'm cold and a bit stiff, fully restored, occupying a purpose built shed bought to house this masterpiece, it's carpeted, double glazed, thermally lined and heated, the Rumi comes out when the sun does. 60 years of age, going on 16, once bitten by the Little Ant you never recover, trust me I and many others know about these things.

Dave Parkes

RUMI REMINICENTS

I saw my first Rumi scooter as a student at Hendon Technical College in 1958. It was parked down a side street and looked fantastically different to the Vespas and Lambos of the day. I was impressed by the incredible cast frame design and integral engine layout. It made existing scooter designs look archaic.

Some months later much to my surprise a good friend (Dave) of mine turned up at our youth club on a beautiful blue tipo sport and I was both green with envy and hooked.

He had traded in his Claud Butler as deposit at Alford Brothers a shop in Holloway road London so I promptly did the same with my Sun Manx and bought my blue tipo sport.

I could not afford it of course at £7 46s a month it was two weeks wages for me an apprentice engineering draughtsman.

My new Rumi was not without its problems the gearbox and clutch were tight with the clutch ball bearing finally welding to the outer plate housing. The HT coils were replaced with Lucas coils. It was very thirsty being a two stroke twin and 16:1 Castrol 30/gal petrol was a must and I ran the engine in very carefully. When it stopped suddenly one day and all efforts to check why had failed, Dave towed me across London from Golders Green to Holloway road so Fred Alford could check it out. The contact breaker points had seized on the spindle (Ah those Italian electrics).

Rumi owners gathered at the Alfords shop in Holloway road and they were such a great bunch we formed the South London Rumi Club. Most of us had girlfriends so the club mix was just right . We planned tech. evenings with Fred Alford showing us how to strip down and maintain our pride and joys. We also had fun evenings as well as Saturday and Sunday trips down to the south coast.

It was on one of these trips to Ramsgate that my sport excelled itself. It now had 3000 miles on the clock with highly polished combustion chambers and pistons a slight increase in compression ratio and twin cherry bombs. It was going like the clappers, anyway I digress. There was of course great good humoured rivalry between GS and LI owners who were mainly mods, we of course were rockers with our leather jackets leggings and boots (for those who could afford them mine were black vinyl) so we were a bit knaffed when a bunch of GS owners passed two of us on our way home at speed with fingers raised. Not to be outdone I dropped a cog to third and opened the sport up, wow the sound of those cherry bombs nearly blew the GS guys away as I tore threw the pack holding on to third until I was alongside the leader, the sound was fantastic as the sport engine revs kept coming, then up into top and away we went like a bat out of hell leaving the GS pack in a cloud of two stroke smoke. What a machine.

The party trick that always gobsmacked both bike and scooter owners was to place a threepenny bit on the crankcase and rev the engine as high as you dared. The threepenny bit remained unmoved with the expected response. You could make a few bob from the unsuspecting.

Summer months evening and weekend runs took the two of us out to Richmond and Kingston were we spotted this Rumi Shop in Richmond run by a bloke called Gus (I think) he was pretty friendly and had a great Rumi (all bits of chrome and polished alloy).

Anyway he invited us along to the Richmond club. We came expecting a friendly welcome, we were ignored, so we left never to return. Pity I liked Richmond

The Rumi Concessionaries were in Willesden just down the road from where I lived and a guy called Don Crawford used to run the whole show. He was very helpful and an enthusiast who had been to the Rumi factory (lucky bloke).

In my pursuit for more power from the sport I started to use a moly -oil called Addi-Mix which allowed an 80:1 (oil/petrol) ratio gave much improved performance and better MPG. The makers claimed no harmful effects to the engine but mine succumbed to big end failure and a scored cylinder barrel. Never believe whats on the bottle.

I eventually got married, traded my beloved Rumi Tipo Sport for a Triumph Tigress (250cc twin 4 stroke) and settled down to married life but thats another story.

(PPS attached is some RUMI pIcs hope you can use them)

To see the pics go to "Pictures from Yesteryear"

Mike Hope

Please find Registration	MODEL	YEAR SOLD	RUMI FOUND	CONDITION
233 ALT	Tipo Sport	1963	YES	Restored
330 XMG	Tipo Sport	1963	YES	Rear Frame Found
676 UMH	Tipo Sport	1964	NO
XLL 300	Formichino	1964	NO
697 HMV	Formichino	1963	NO
315 CLA	Tipo Sport	1966	YES	not known
AMV 208A	Formichino	ANY	INFO	PLEASE
108 BLL	Formichino	1964	NO
871 BOM	Formichino	1961	NO
231 MPC	Tipo Sport	1963	NO
157 JML	Formichino	1974	NO	Broken up
626 NPH	Bol d'or	1965	NO
VMH 996	Tipo Sport	-	YES	Frame Parts Found
NKY 70	Formichino	-	NO

950 THX	Tipo Sport	1980	NO
880 UMY	Formichino	1959	NO
888 YMM	Formichino	1968	NO
545 JNK	Formichino	1963	NO
YJO 203	Formichino	-	NO
939 BFC	Squirrell	-	NO
857 YMT	Tipo Sport	-	NO
2050 MP	Formi	-	NO
881 UMY	Formi	-	NO
871 ALN	Tipo Sport	1963	NO

XXP 188	Formichino	1967	NO
738 CYN	Formichino	1961	NO
YYP 889	Junior	cc1960	NO
445 DOU	Tipo Sport		NO
994 VMH	Tipo Sport	1960	NO
WRV 945	Formi		NO
977 YMY	Tipo Sport	1961	NO
1590 WW	Tipo Sport		NO
329 TMG	Boldor		NO	YES
91 KPJ	Tipo Sport		NO

168 NKE	Tipo Sport		NO
535 HML	Formichino		NO
NMD 207	Bol d'or	cc1975	NO
421 MHH	Junior Racer	cc1960	NO
KJT 939	Formichino	cc 1958	NO	Is on pictures of yesteryear
OCK 827	Tipo Sport	1960	NO
765 HME	Formichino	1963	NO
222 NMC	Bol d'or		NO
RYE 400	Formichino		NO