Growing up, Austin(son) was always drawn to old Volkswagen beetles and buses.
Fresh out of high school, he finally got his hands on a 1970 VW Westfalia, which he immediately
had the urge to tear apart and to make it look like new again. At the time, Austin wasn't very mechanically inclined, but
David (Father) being an old hippie, had been through a few VW's in his days and helped with the engine work while Austin started
working on the body. Together, they were able to bring this old VW camper back to life; but it was only the beginning.
Because any VW nut knows once you get into VW's; there's no going back. The 2 soon started scouring the countryside for
old oval window beetles and split window buses. The next few years Austin spent all his free time cutting out rust, replacing body panels,
Welding and painting old VW's; while David helped with the motor builds and mechanics.
So when did this whole Vespa thing come in to play?
Around 1998 Austin was chillin in his living room searching the internet on his newly purchased WebTV.
He happened upon a site called www.scooterworks.com. Austin had always wanted a Vespa but didn't know where to find one.
Right there on the site was a cool looking 1965 Vespa VNB for sale in Chicago. He had some extra cash; so he
convinced one of his buddy's to drive him to Chicago, 6 hours away, to help pick up this kickass Vespa scooter.
Needless to say; the scoot needed some work. So,once he got it back to Iowa, he tore into it to fix it up.
Over the next 8 years everything that could have possibly gone wrong with that scooter did! Austin learned
just about everything he knows from that damn bike. Vintage Vespas can be like Black Magic and bring you to
your knees in patience. But he eventually prevailed and that scoot today is still his reliable daily driver.
Winter of 2007, Austin said to his Dad, "Lets open a scooter shop and sell Genuine scooters!".
It sounded like a good Idea. I mean, gas prices are going up and scooters are cool, so maybe it would work!
And Green Tree Scooters was born! (The dead of winter in Iowa can be pretty depressing if you're a scooterist
just waiting for the snow to melt and the trees to turn green, so you can go out and ride.) That's pretty
much how the name "Green Tree" came to be. Well, the sale of new scooters didn't go over very well in small
town Iowa. So, David and Austin decided to go back to basics and do what they knew best; they started restoring old vintage
Vespas. The more they got into restoring Vespas, the more they realized "this is pretty cool and a lot of fun". Maybe even more fun
then restoring VW'S. So in 2011, they decided to get out of the business of selling new scooters and began to concentrate
solely on vintage scooter restorations.
Today, Green Tree Scooters restores around 8+ Vespa's a year and are constantly striving to better the quality of their restorations.
You can buy a restored scooter from them with the ease of knowing they are going to stand behind their work and that if you ever have
any problems with it, they will be just a call or email away to help you fix your problem.
Green Tree Scooters is:
(Father) David Van Zante
(Son) Austin Van Zante
