Scootering, number 72, september 1991 - Dealer profile - Mark Broadhurst

DEALER SPOTLIGHT MARC BROADHURST
Marc Broadhurst, who started, owns and runs his own business, MB Developments, is probably well known to a lot of you for his radical water-cooled scooters and other one-offs. He's only 29, yet already he has an awesome reputation amongst dealers and scooterists alike. He's got to the stage where many well known dealers come to him for his own design and manufactured scooter parts, performance bits and tools.
It's all a long cry from 1976 when, at the tender age of 14, he really saw his first scooters. He was into The Who and some neighbours moved into his street. One had an 'S' type GP200 as well as other scoots. Watching these machines Marc gradually became interested in them.
Two years later Quadrophenia was out, and a lot of his pals were becoming Mods and getting scooters. Marc helped fix his pal's Jet 200, then at 16 he got an LI 150. Marc played with it, stripped it, rebuilt it, but had to wait one year when he bought a GP125 to get on the road (legally, that is). He quickly passed his test in his home town of Mexborough and started doing the rallies. He joined several local clubs but always liked travelling on his own, at his own pace. When he left school he got a job as Motor Vehicle Technician and was taught the skills of the trade he uses today. Always one to try out things for himself, he rarely used scooter dealers - instead he experimented with tuning himself. He still had the LI 150 and he tuned that, bored it out to 200cc and made up his first rough exhaust using the garage's welding kit.
Needless to say, he learned the hard way, and often with disastrous yet funny results. Yet every mistake taught him a lesson and he rarely made the same mistake twice. Over 5 years he went on every rally, club discos, LCGB events - you name it - and more often than not with something else being tested on that trip.
A local lad, Melly Brown, did a water-cooled racer and that set Marc's mind a-ticking. He reckoned the ultimate would be a Jap 2-stroke barrel on a Lammy, but at the time he couldn't manage it. (He does it now, though!) So he experimented with Lambretta barrels - 13 barrels later and he was getting quite good at it. His first water-cooled Lambretta was in 1982 - a simple barrel, pipes and radiator affair, and since then he's radically improved on it.
In 1983 his scooter and story appeared in Jet Set and stirred up a lot of interest, and all the time Marc experimented. Then he was offered ajob at Grimsby at Beedspeed with Alan, who needed a lad for his workshops. There he stayed for a year till 1985 and although he regrets moving his family there and buying a house etc., he admits he learnt a lot. After a year he was laid off from Beedspeed's and with a family and mortgage to pay for, he had no choice but set up on his own. This was 1986, and it started to take off. Gradually Marc refined his watercooled designed, but also introduced others. In his second year the shop got burnt down in a mystery arson attack, and he's now got a unit in Doncaster.
These days his water-cooled kits for Vespas or Lambrettas can be practically got off the shelf, but each customer has his preference. Marc's early designs had the radiator on the front of the leg-shields - he prefers to keep the scooter's natural lines - and so has refined it completely. Better cooling systems mean less bulky radiators, which means they can be tucked away inside the legshields, hidden by a toolbox, served by only tell-tale holes to allow the airflow. Also the radiator can be tucked away under the legshields out of sight and no-one can obviously tell your scoot is a water-cooled one.
One variant does use a Yamaha LC350 barrel mated to the Innocenti crankcase, and fed by a 34mm Amal smooth bore. Others are water-cooled, and highly tuned water-cooled Malossi kits for Vespas.
90% of his work these days is for other dealers, one-off barrels and designs, but also tools. He's re-designed many of Innocenti's original workshop tools making them much better in the process, which he supplies to dealers and scooterists alike.
At present his most popular conversions though are his 205 Honda conversions, with his own 48mm Clubman design, and a standard or 26mm Amal carb. These Marc swears by for reliability and yet the Lambrettas will happily hit 80 mph. For Vespas his common tune is a T5 170 using the standard barrel/lined out with a Suzuki piston, yet still using standard carbs and exhaust. Again, quicker but also very reliable!
This is, of course, only the tip of the iceberg with Marc; he does TS1 motors with Jap conversions, mild Malossi 210 tunes for Vespas, right up to 220 with water-cooling. Again, he'll do you monster TS1 225 motor with mega sorting and is now working on a 270cc single, using a 74mm piston and 62mm crank. It's now done, but needs water-cooling.
Marc Broadhurst was the chap who started the Jap Con Rod controversy a few years ago, yet now everyone uses them. What's next, and what will we see next year? For the Lambrettas it will be genuine 250cc models using 64mm cranks, Japanese ignition systems. All the groundwork is done already so wait and See. Elsewise it seems the standard Lambretta chain cannot hack the increase in power, so you'll see performance drive chains and a new design of clutch.
When I asked Marc whether he had any regrets or what limits him, he replied, "No regrets, except nowadays I've got no time to do anything. I'm a one man show and work every hour to keep up with the demand or experiment. My family is very understanding, and I pity the missus."
Marc's unit is small but packed with designs, scooters etc. most of which only Marc understands himself. What it doesn't have is the usual bolt-on goodies etc. like a normal scooter shop. I suppose when you see the scooters or the products that Marc produces, you realise his is not a normal scooter shop.
Further details ring 0709-869756 or see Ad next edition.

A selection of carburettor manifolds.

mag14i2.jpg - 22389 Bytes
Malossi 210 water-cooled barrel.

mag14i3.jpg - 25836 Bytes
LC 350 barrel with 34mm amal carb on 200cc engine block.

mag14i4.jpg - 18780 Bytes
A selection of chrome in-house badges, horncastings and other accessories.

mag14i5.jpg - 25341 Bytes
Barrel on left will be a 270cc single when finished, middle barrel is a heavily ported TS1 and barrel on left is a standard TS1.

mag14i6.jpg - 16589 Bytes
Lambretta engine mounting extractor

Go back to the magazine archive index