Bjorn Borg drives without a helmet

SWEDEN. It’s moped expo in Harnosand with influences from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Our fifteenth birthday turned magical the 23th of May 1952 when a change in the law allowed us to enter the open road the day we turn 15. The proposition was meant to ease the isolation for us country-bound hicks but became the smoking gun for a steaming teenage culture. By Lars Krantz. Translation Ellen Kay Krantz.

Let’s put the pedal to the metal, was the name of the exhibit in the county museum in Harnosand. The swoosh of a forest, the tweet from a bird and the sound from a lonely moped riding through the countryside streamed through the hidden speakers. Next to a mailbox and an inviting front porch swing two teenagers had left their mopeds. 

– This exhibit has been differently received, says Marta Molin at the county museum. People arrive and take a load off. They take a seat, relaxes, leaf through some magazines and “just hang.” One man revisits a few times a week.

Mopeds from floor to ceiling. In collaboration with Njurunda Classic Moped and Club Raketa among others the exiting age characterized by hormones running wild and open minds are reflected in the exhibit. When the world was your oyster, nothing could stop you and the entire world was at your feet. The message of this exhibit is very differently delivered than in traditional exhibits.

The bikes are presented in a gigantic show case from floor to ceiling. You suddenly turn twelve all over again when the fantasies of the bikes overhaul your mind. Lilian Gilmark is responsible for the artistic parts.
– Very well visited, says Marta Molin who has her very own Novelette in the show. In connection to the moped exhibit in August a rally was held with hot dogs and Bosco milk as driver nutrition. Later on the national archive department in Harnosand had a representative, Iréne Nilsson, who opened the data base, were enthusiast could trace vehicles by frame-, motor- and registration number.