Sears and the Vespa: A Match Made in Chicago
With Amerivespa coming to Chicago in 2026, it’s a great time to point out that the Windy City is arguably the spiritual American home of Vespa (and Lambretta!) scooters.
Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck, and Co. was the largest retailer in the United States for most of the 20th Century. In 1925 they started adding retail stores to their huge mail-order operation, and by 1950 Sears was the nation’s second largest brick-and-mortar retailer (after A&P), with more than 700 stores around the country. Until the rise of the internet, Sears was as ubiquitous as Amazon is today, the go-to source for pretty much everything; musical instruments, clothing, toys, appliances, toiletries, even pre-fabricated homes.
In a 1925 contest, the “Allstate” name was chosen to name Sears’ new line of automobile tires. Soon, all of Sears’ transportation-related products bore the Allstate brand name. Allstate auto parts, accessories, service tools, belts, oils and fluids, batteries, trailers, rebuilt engines, and even model trains filled a large portion of Sears’ nearly-1500-page catalogs. A few years later, when Sears started offering automobile insurance, they gave it the same name; the Allstate Insurance Company was owned by Sears until 1995, and is still based in the Chicago area. At Amerivespa, you’ll spot Allstate Arena (the former Rosemont Horizon) near the rally hotel.
Finding themselves selling everything related to motor vehicles but the vehicles themselves, Sears got into the market. They’d dabbled in motorcycles and cars at the turn of the century, so once again, Sears rebranded several vehicles made by other manufacturers. The first was a 3-horsepower Cushman scooter in 1948. This proved a successful venture, so in 1952, they launched an Allstate automobile. The car, a re-badged Kaiser-Frazer “Henry J.,” was a bit of a flop, but that’s not why we’re here…
The Allstate “Cruisaire” also appeared in 1952 Sears catalogs, a Vespa 125cc, with slight modifications and an Allstate badge. While the word “Vespa” was never mentioned in the catalog, the listing proudly stated, “a product of Piaggio & Co. of Genoa, Italy, builder of fine aircraft engines and Europe’s most popular Scooter.”
The price? $279.50, or $56.00 down, $25 a month… “Ride and enjoy it as you pay for it!” Imagine how appealing this was to countless teens and young professionals, in the city, country, or suburbs, who could simply mail a $56 check to Chicago and within days find “Europe’s most popular Scooter” in a crate on their doorstep.
It’s important to point out these were the first Vespas available in the United States. It would be a couple more years before Piaggio set up their own distribution network, likely based on the success of Sears’ Allstate Cruisaire.
Sears continued to sell various iterations of the Crusaire (and “Super Cruisaire”) until 1966. Details changed over the years, but all were based on the current European-model Vespa 125, generally with some cost-saving measures (cheaper trim, a boxy taillight, often no speedometer, and never a front shock absorber). Earlier models were painted “light green” (depending on the year, the actual color seems to vary between light olive, seafoam, silverish, and sometimes even light blue). the later VNA/VNB-based models (after 1963) were always red.
Sears sold other scooters and motorcycles throughout this period, including Puch, Gilera, and Cushman models. Cushman imported Vespas themselves in the early sixties.
About a decade after the Allstate Cruisaire hit the market, Sears’ cross-town rivals, Montgomery Ward (who started the U.S. mail-order craze more than a decade before Sears), began selling “Riverside”-badged Series 3 Lambretta Li125s, along with a variety of other rebranded motorcycles and mopeds.
Sears imported its last Vespas in 1966 and 1967, but these were entirely different, badged with a round, blue, embossed “Sears” decal. These two scooters, the Vespa Sprint 150 and the Vespa 125 smallframe, came to be called the “bluebadge” models. Unlike the Allstates, both were essentially European-spec, but featured the distinctive U.S.-market “Mickey Mouse” taillight that is now highly coveted by collectors. Conventional wisdom tells us they were introduced and marketed together, the Sprint version available in silver and the smallframe in white. The catalogs tell a different story.
The 1966 Spring/Summer catalog features only the older red VNB-style “Allstate Cruisaire.” The 1966 Fall/Winter catalog introduces the “Sears Cruiseaire” smallframe in white (with a red badge!) in front of a red VNB-style Cruisaire (with a blue badge rather than an Allstate logo!). The 1967 and 1968 Spring/Summer catalogs show only the white bluebadge smallframe, but list it as also available in red (!). Where’s the Sprint version? The only print evidence we’ve found is a separate brochure in which it’s ironically named the “Cruisaire Classic” but pictured (flipped backwards!) alongside the arguably-more-“classic” original Allstate Cruisaire, with no smallframe to be seen. By late 1969, all scooters and motorcycles are gone from the Sears catalog, replaced with a few janky-looking farm bikes and go-karts.
Certain variants of the Allstate Cruisaire were only made for a year or two and sold in small quantities, and older models obviously have become more and more rare over time. But as a whole, Allstates are reasonably common, especially in the Midwest. Until recent years, they often sold below the prices of an equivalent Vespa, because enthusiasts preferred the Vespa-branded models with a better front suspension. Allstate badges were often replaced with Vespa badges as they were restored over the years.
But over the last couple decades Allstates and “Bluebadges” have developed their own cachet. American scooterists have realized they’re an important part of the story of Vespa in America, and deep-pocketed international Vespa collectors want an exotic Allstate model to display with their fleet of Hofmanns, Douglases, and ACMAs.
At Amerivespa 2026, we’ll welcome all Allstates, bluebadges, and Riversides back home to Chicago with pride of place (and some special categories) in our concours d’elegance.
SearsAllstateRiders.com is a great resource for model numbers, photos, and literature, as well as the many other Sears vehicles. Muse Technical has a huge archive of Sears (and other) catalogs and wishbooks to peruse.