This photo was taken in October 1992 during my three week trip around the UK with the original Peraves Oekomobil 002, aka 'The Old Blue machine' which I had originally learned to drive in 1988 for a feature on Top Gear. (It was built in 1985). I persuaded the good people at the National Motorcycle Museum to let me push their Quasar outside for this historic photo – the whole Top Gear programme had been introduced by William Woollard sitting in this very Quasar – we also had three other Quasars in action in the Top Gear item, but they were shot at Wroughton, Wiltshire while the Ecomobile item was shot in and around its native Winterthur, Switzerland. So this was the first time a Quasar and an Ecomobile had ever been in the same place together.
A similar photo to this one appeared in an article I wrote about the history of FFs and the BMW C1 for the Daily Telegraph in 1998 as part of the paper's feature on the new and roofed German 'safer scooter'.
Sadly, neither of these machines still exists. The Quasar was destroyed in the NMM's catastrophic fire in September 2003 and the Ecomobile was finished off when it hit a tree, after two decades and a quarter of a million miles on the road. PNB.
Photo: © Paul Blezard
A few days after this photo was taken I drove the Ecomobile into the Blue Peter TV studio live, at the famous TV Centre in Shepherds Bush, with presenter John Leslie in the back. The brief item, all 1 minute and 40 seconds of it, can still be watched here: https://tinyurl.com/yzex6cfc
While I was in London I also appeared with the Eco in an ITN TV news item filmed in Barnes and Hammersmith; it can still be watched here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT-QQQGLcOo&t=26s