"DRAGSTER - BACK TO THE FUTURE"

"Strange, grotesque and over-the-top. But who will use it? Who will want it with that front, with that exhaust and with that frame?"
 
These are some of the comments that Italjet overheard - and metabolized, analyzed and motorized - among the crowd ten years ago at Milan's Bicycle and Motorcycle Exhibition 1995 when the prototype of the Dragster 50cc went on display on the rotating podium at the company stand.
 
The Bolognese motorbike manufacturer presented a proud, amusing, trendy, racer-style Dragster mixing technology with aesthetics; a scooter with a visible lattice-work frame and going by the name of Dragster - because no other name could be more suited. Instead, ten years on, the Dragster not only still exists and is observed in wonder, but it is still in great demand. Even more impressive perhaps is the existence of a worldwide network of fan clubs that are just as original and surprising: one example is Paul Robinson's www.italjetdragster.com site.
 
Robinson created the website in the year 2000, in honour of all Dragster owners and to make sure they had a space where they could find information on how to 'hot up' their engines and to redesign and re-clad their scooters to reflect their personality. The legend of the Dragster - seen as the scooter for the new generations, as a scooter like no other, and the symbol of a very new-age New Wave - has given rise to a scooter-rider attitude and identity embodied in an endless number of T-shirts, badges and other paraphernalia. Yet it does not end here. The Dragster has even arrived in Silicon Valley: the videogames sector leader has created a special Dragster game where fans can bemuse themselves or let off anger in endless battles escaping from or chasing the enemy aboard a virtual, blazing Italjet scooter.
 
And here it is again, more exuberant than ever, offering a reliable performance keeping up with modern times, but above all non-stop intense emotion.
 
Tartarini and Ferrandino have both decided to photograph it in all its force, with its accessories and related spare parts, because it is recognized as the scooter. A scooter that, despite the passing of time and market and consumer changes, has remained a cult. And as such they have chosen to immortalize it.
 
So here is the Dragster once again (in the 50cc injection version, the 125cc four-stroke and the 250cc four-stroke) to surprise, amaze and pamper - yes pamper - aficionados of myths, monsters, legends and metropolitan-scooter realities. Here it is in all its finery and - adding a dash of imagination - whatever customized look may be given by fans sweeping from Europe to the lands of the Rising Sun, who have finally found a mascot to unite them.
 
ITALJET INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
(EICMA - November 2005)