Well I might be out of jokes... you see I promised the Daelim agent that I wouldn’t make any of the obvious (to me at least) Banana or Madonna references while reviewing Daelim’s two stroke 50cc BONITA. They seem to think I am clever enough to come up with something suitably amusing without resorting to base, easy laughs... I’m not so sure I am that smart so here, instead of another of our reviews that revolve around comedy to keep you our faithful reader entertained, is a straight, informative review... No cheap laughs here... no really!

Bonita is a Spanish word that means beautiful and this is where the nametag on this machine originated. You see what happened was this...
Once upon a time there was an exceptionally beautiful Brazilian back packer. She was olive of complexion with dark wavy hair to the middle of her back. The thing that really got you though were her eyes... a deep shimmering pair of sea green orbs that showed a depth that is seldom seen in the back packer’s one is likely to cross paths with. Her name was Ce La Vega, La Vega, Consuela, Maria, Guantanamera Jones (Ok so her dad had some British heritage, don’t get picky!) A quirk was that she insisted no one shorten this when addressing her. The other thing that set her apart from the more regular tourist was her love of scooters... that’s right, the humble scooter was her passion and during her sabbatical from day job as a head of neurorocket science at a large and respected university she had decided that she would indulge this passion for scooters with a 3 month tour of Asia taking in as many scooter factories and museums as possible, along with some general touring and mingling with the scootering populations of the region.

After a fantastic time in Vietnam and Cambodia, our girl decided to go to Taiwan as they were very much the emerging power of scooter manufacture. She landed and made for the hotel, little was she to know that she would never make it to that hotel for instead of renting a scooter at the airport she loaded her bags into a cab and instructed the unpleasantly scented driver where she was heading... unfortunately her grasp of the language was very poor which meant instead of the comfortable hotel in the centre of town that she was supposed to end up at she was dropped outside a place (of the same name by chance) on very much the wrong side of the tracks. By the time she had spoken to the bedraggled, toothless old woman behind what passed as a desk, figured out she was in the wrong place and left, the cab had gone... with her luggage. She turned to walk somewhere to get some transport when everything went dark... Not so much a solar eclipse as a heavy cosh to the back of her head... sometimes an obviously well heeled outsider in the wrong part of town is just too much to resist...

I won’t go into detail as to what befell our poor girl but let me pick up the story where she is dragged out of the harbour, alive but with little memory, no identification or funds and not in especially good  health by a small man with a big grin and twinkling, friendly eyes fishing on his day off. He took her home and with his surprisingly sympathetic wife cleaned her up and put her in bed... hoping she would recover. She did in as much as she regained consciousness, motor function and the like... her memory remained somewhat foggy. She did recall her name; unfortunately the kindly couple couldn’t pronounce it so the wife called her the only Spanish word they knew... Bonita... Bonita didn’t have the heart to tell them that in Brazil (for the purpose of the narrative she also remembered where she was born) Portuguese is the spoken language... not Spanish; after all they had taken her in and to all intents and purposes saved her life. Now Mr Wing the gentleman in question couldn’t afford to put her up and feed her forever so he arranged a job for her at the Daelim factory where he worked. Bonita was a bit confused as to why she was so overjoyed to be wiring left hand front indicators into scooters... but she was, and she was good at it... eventually she saved enough money to go home to her native Brazil and with some expensive therapy, paid for by a wealthy gentleman (she didn’t get ugly over the course of the story!) she regained most of her memory... and she never forgot her time at Daelim, and they never forgot her. Later on she penned a design for her ultimate scooter, design and specs... the works. Daelim loved the concept, built the machine and named it in her honour... Bonita (Ce La Vega, La Vega, Consuela Maria Guantanamera Jones didn’t fit on the side!)

So that is the real story behind the Bonita’s name... I told you... no comedy! What? At no point did I promise not to segue 83miles off topic!
I suppose you need to know about the scooter... It is FANTASTIC! Good acceleration, good top speed, excellent fuel economy (83mpg) probably the best suspension on a 50 to date with no bottoming out (even with my lard ass aboard!).  The styling is pretty damn cool too, the standard modern classic that we see a lot of but with lots of cool details.  Ok so there are a few other scooters that are pretty good, what sets the Bonita apart, aside from the excellent performance is the styling, when you first set eyes on it the Little Daelim is pretty attractive but when you get up close (like we do when giving it a pre photo session wash) you start noticing the little details. A lot of thought has clearly gone into the build of the Bonita and it shows.  It give an impression of the total package, well built using good quality materials... it just all works well as a whole, better still it isn’t overtly masculine or feminine in its execution, in short a girl will probably enjoy the aesthetic and a man won’t feel particularly girly riding it... this is unusual in this style of machine.

The only real niggles are hardly worth mentioning... but I will just for balance... No full face storage under the seat, although it is pretty spacious and the fuel needle is pretty hard to see at night, and the seat is on a bit much of a downhill slope for my liking... yup that’s it... Told you I liked it. It also has many of the features that tend to be left out (and are missed in day to day use) such as an indicator clicker (although it could be a bit louder) and a seat release from the ignition. All in all good bike, good price, good features, good looking, good speed (which it maintains well uphill!) Go ride one!

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Price	UK £1299, NZ$2495
0-50km/h	12.1 Seconds
50-80km/h	na
Fuel Economy	2.7L/100kms - 84.6MPG
Speedo Accuracy	50kph displayed = 44kph actual
Pros:	Styling, economical, fast two-stroke 50cc,
Cons:	Strange seat angle, no full face storage.
Handling
Performance
Fuel Consumption
Value for Money
Ease of Use
Styling
Build quality
Overall Score	82%

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