Built as a two-wheeled homage to the iconic Mazda 787B that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, this custom Vespa PX is as good as it gets.
In 1991, the Mazda 787B rocked the motorsport world when it took gold at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was the first Japanese car to win the prestigious event, and it remains the only rotary-powered vehicle ever to do so. It also graced fans with one of the most memorable race car liveries ever to hit the track.
Wrapped in a retina-searing orange-and-green argyle design, the 787B paid tribute to Mazda’s key sponsor, the Japanese clothing company Renown—specifically its vibrant sub-brand, Charge. Some suggest that the pattern was inspired by the colorful argyle socks the label was known for. Whatever the reason, the 787B’s bold aesthetic and hard-fought victory cemented its status as one of endurance racing’s true legends.
There’s a world of difference between the 700-horsepower 1991 Mazda 787B and the diminutive 1982 Vespa PX80 E—but that didn’t stop one German Vespista from turning his PX into a radical tribute to the former.
Based in Nuremberg, David Buderus has been riding and modifying Vespa scooters for 25 years. He’s part of the Zennteifel Rollerclub—a tight group of scooter nuts hailing from the nearby Bavarian town of Langenzenn. Their name loosely translates to ‘Zenn devils’—it’s a reference to the Zenn river that flows through the region, and it perfectly encapsulates their approach to scootering.
David works out of a shed that he shares with friends, but insists that scooter customization is just a hobby. “In my eyes,” he says, “a build like this would be so insanely expensive if you wanted to make a living from it—not many people could afford it.”
He isn’t kidding. His ‘Vespa 787B’ was a true labor of love that took him four years to complete—mainly due to his obsessive attention to detail. The Mazda livery might be the scooter’s biggest drawcard, but there’s a smorgasbord of custom stuff lurking under the bright paint.
The impetus for the project wasn’t originally the Mazda 787B (that idea came later). David had seen a custom Vespa PX with cut bodywork and a Lambretta front end. “It was simply a mega combo,” he tells us.
“I searched the classifieds for a suitable donor—rather half-heartedly, though, because I didn’t want to spend thousands of Euros on a top-of-the-line bike. A friend then gave me a tip about a really good base, a pre-89 PX, with registration papers, that had already been dropped and cut. It had also been in a minor accident, which led to a really good price.”
“I made an appointment, hitched a trailer to my car, and drove nearly 200 km [124 miles] to Aschaffenburg to view it. It was exactly the bike I was looking for—and, despite the accident, it was rideable and not at all in a bad condition. An absolute plus was the papers, some of which are difficult or even impossible to obtain these days.”
With a whopping output of 6.8 hp, the PX80’s little motor was never going to cut it. David turfed it in no time, replacing it with the 200 cc mill from a Vespa Cosa, which he modified to fit the PX. A 221 cc racing cylinder kit from Malossi was installed to bump the capacity up, matched to a custom-built liquid-cooled head.
Other upgrades include a 35 mm Keihin carb on a purpose-built intake manifold, and a Tassinari Vforce 4 reed valve block. David also installed a Vape ignition from SIP Scootershop, fabricated a bespoke flywheel, and eliminated the kick-starter. The exhaust header is a prototype from the German Vespa specialist SESC, and the muffler is a one-off.
For the front-end, David scored a Lambretta fork from a friend who had bought it cheaply and didn’t need it. Since he’s fitted Lambretta forks to Vespas before, the job was relatively straightforward. But it was around this time that the inspiration to model the scooter after the mythical Mazda 787B hit.
“I knew I wanted a racing livery,” David says, “but which one? Gulf? John Player Special? It’s cool, but it’s just black with JPS logos—and besides, I don’t smoke, so why would I stick cigarettes on my moped?”
“Then I remembered one of my favorite cars in Gran Turismo on PlayStation: the Mazda 787B, a fire-breathing Group C monster from the 90s with an infernal-sounding four-rotor Wankel engine. A complete underdog team that, quite unexpectedly, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1991. It was perfect—and the paint was totally cool, even if it was the main sponsor’s sock design.”
“The direction was clear from then on, and I could start incorporating details as a homage to the 787B. For this, I ordered a book from Japan that had some very good detail photos of the car, and would serve as the basis for the build. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth the money.”
David started by duplicating the look of the Mazda’s wheels. The rear wheel is a handmade 10” replica of the 787B’s Volk Racing Super Fine Mag wheels—logos and all. The front wheel is a SIP Scootershop part, but its left side is covered by a handmade aero disc, just like the front wheels on the 787B.
Next, David upgraded the front-end with a pair of SIP dampers and a Casa Performance disc brake. The front fender looks like a cut-down OEM part, but it’s actually half of a Buell fender matched to half of a Honda fender. A YSS shock props up the rear, while a custom disc brake setup adds extra stopping power.
There’s hardly an inch of the Vespa bodywork that David hasn’t massaged in some way. The leg fairings were narrowed and liberated of their turn signal housings, while the rear wheel cowls were cut down and widened. A café racer-style seat pan sits up top, with a modified Crimaz belly pan mounted under the floor panel.
David also eliminated the scooter’s underbody struts, opting to reinforce the chassis with a steel plate instead. The frame number plaque was relocated to the glove box, which itself was transplanted from a Lambretta V50. Tiny Highsider LED turn signals were Frenched into the bodywork, with a pair of taillights tucked into tunnels in the rear fairing.
“Even though the taillights of the 787B are completely different, that’s one of the things where my personal taste took over,” David tells us. “The goal was to create a scooter-like homage to the 787B—not a replica with two wheels too few.”
The finer details on David’s Vespa could fill volumes. Out back, the rear cowls can be flipped forward for maintenance by releasing the race car-style pins that hold them in place. The right-hand side offers access to the carb and spark plug, and the left reveals the electronic components, which are all mounted neatly on a carbon fiber base plate and wired to a Motogadget mo.unit Blue brain.
The glovebox opens electronically, using a hydraulic damper that David scalped from his car’s cubby, while hiding parts like the radiator expansion tank. Perched up top is a custom-made dashboard that, once again, testifies to David’s commitment to his vision.
“I wanted a few switches and indicators reminiscent of the cockpit of the 787B,” he explains. “So, I got the right toggle switches, LED indicators for voltage and temperature, and mounted the whole thing with carbon fiber plates and yellow stickers. To get as close as possible to the original lettering, I bought an embossed lettering machine and created the corresponding labels.”
Higher up, David modified the Vespa’s cockpit plastics to host a digital Motogadget dash. Left with space to fill, he designed a commemorative plaque in the shape of the Wankel engine’s signature triangular rotor, which was anodized gold and mounted with a carbon fiber surround. The controls include a Domino throttle, a Magura front brake master cylinder, a Motorino Diavolo twist-shifter, and integrated push buttons, all heavily modified to work with the scoot’s low-slung handlebars.
Since the rear brake was now a hydraulic unit, David needed an all-new pedal to control it. So he machined one from scratch, going as far as etching the Mazdaspeed logo into it. Every last component was carefully selected—from the BGM Pro Superstrong clutch to the race-style filler cap that offers access to the fuel tank through the seat unit.
The Vespa’s radiator, water pump, and horn are all hidden in the belly pan, which features a mesh front that echoes the bumper intakes on the Mazda 787B. Take a gander at the bodywork just above the front fender, where David has added more mesh, a miniature tow hitch, and a cutout that replicates the Mazda’s hood scoop.
David’s friend, Tutto Moto, lent a hand on the more technical frame fabrication jobs, while SESC prepped the bike for paint. The paint work itself was handled by Helmut Grimm, with David masking out the design at every step.
It was a mammoth undertaking. The first step was to figure out how to translate the Mazda 787B design for the surface area and shape of a vintage Italian scooter. “That’s when I realized how complex the whole thing would be,” says David.
“While a race car is basically a wedge with otherwise 90° edges, a scooter is known to have a lot more surfaces; inner leg shield, front leg shield, running board, rear. It all had to fit together harmoniously in the end.”
“After the orange base color, I spent about three hours with the painter masking off the edges for the other three colors: green, black, and silver. This was also considerably harder than the drawing itself. Of course, there’s the third dimension involved, which can be somewhat overlooked on paper.”
The final step was applying the Renown design’s white dashed lines and myriad decals. David spent 15 hours with his decal supplier prepping every last element for printing and plotting. Then he put another 10 hours into painstakingly applying everything to the Vespa, agonizing over every last millimeter.
It was time well spent. Not only does David’s Vespa 787B wear all the right team and sponsor logos, but it also sports an accurate 1991 Le Mans scrutineering sticker on the glove box, plus the names and nationalities of the drivers that piloted the car to victory. Final touches include a Wankel-shaped exhaust end cap, with the same motif poking through the carbon fiber engine cover.
The idea of turning a vintage Vespa scooter into a two-wheeled tribute to what is arguably the most famous Mazda ever might seem unhinged, but we’re glad David did it. His Vespa 787B is as good a race replica as it gets—and it’s a testament to just how deep his obsession goes.
David Buderus Instagram | Images by Dominik Benke
