The least you could say
is that this scooter is really linked to the story of my family,
because my dad's uncle bought it in 1959.
My uncle Monet, as we call him, never had an auto license,
so this scooter has always been his only means of transportation.
My name is Maxime Delestre.
I am 20, and I drive this 1957 Lambretta.
When I was at the factory, it was already in fashion.
You had motorcycles, Vespas, Lambrettas--
so, driving a car never occurred to me, even if I could have driven one.
My name is Raymond, and I was born in 1925.
And I feel like I've always driven a Lambretta.
From 1959 to 1970,
the scooter would take my great uncle and great aunt anywhere,
to buy groceries at the farm
and go to the seaside on weekends or on vacation.
Once, they even took it on a 220-mile trip to Brittany,
with their luggage tied to the spare tire, which is now unthinkable.
Back then, when you drove 60 miles a day
and stayed at a hotel each night, it was doable.
We would drive back to Caen, and off we'd go to our daily jobs.
In 1970, the Lambretta had a serious breakdown
and could not be used anymore.
It was stored in Grandmother's barn.
Grandmother lived right next to my uncle.
It stayed there for 19 years,
under the straw, with the chickens.
In 1989, Grandmother passed away,
and the barn was quickly under renovation.
The Lambretta took too much space and was in terrible condition
after spending 19 years in humidity without being used.
A neighbor from the village took it and promised to restore it.
That's when we lost track of it.
For 20 years, the scooter was away from our family,
up until 2009,
when someone randomly entered my dad's dealership
in search of Lambretta parts.
In the end, my dad realized that the man was the former villager
who had taken the scooter 20 years earlier.
It is such a rare occurrence
to stumble upon a family heirloom 20 years later.
Obviously, my father got it back,
but the scooter was in awful shape.
The engine was stuck; the body panel was eaten by rust.
So, a long restoration process began to bring back its previous luster.
The restoration took two years.
Every couple of months or so,
my dad and I would go to the shop to check up on the progress,
and the scooter that used to be a rust bucket
would slowly come back to life, and it was nice to see.
Then it was pure joy, because for my great uncle's 90th birthday,
my father and I surprised him by driving the scooter.
It was a great and very emotional moment.
After several decades away from it,
my uncle finally saw his brand-new scooter coming round the bend.
Fifty-eight years of memories spread out over three generations.
It's awesome.