Spidi Vintage jacket in dark brown

Some years ago, on one of our visits to the Spidi factory in Italy we fell in love with a super-soft, waxed, leather jacket called the Vintage. It was gorgeous. It wore like a glove, and we reckoned it had a terrific, vintage, café-racer feel to it. But we didn’t like the adornments. We felt that our customers had outgrown the garish stripes that adorned the sleeves, and frankly we thought the large Spidi badging on the left breast was unsubtle and clumsy. We asked if they would make an exclusive version for Motolegends; cutting out the badges but leaving the two, subtle stripes the left sleeve; and some banding at the neck.

As far as the jacket is concerned, the leather itself is a premium-quality, Italian-tanned 1.1/1.22mm, waxed cowhide. It’s bovine leather, but feels as soft as a goat or even a sheep hide, and that’s down to the hand waxing.

In truth, there’s not a huge amount to say about the jacket. It meets the CE standard for abrasion resistance at the AA level, which is what we would expect of such a jacket. It comes with Level 1 armour in the elbows and shoulders, and has a pocket for a back protector. We recommend our own Velcro-modified D3O protector.

There’s no thermal liner with the jacket, but that's how we prefer our leather jackets these days. Most liners that come as standard with jackets are rather run-of-the-mill. But anyway, we like our leather jackets back to basic. If you want extra warmth, wear something in Merino. The Rukka Lahti would also work well.

Because the leather is so soft, and therefore somewhat elastic, it fits a lot of people pretty well. But you get popper adjusters at the waist if you want to cinch it in. One thing we really like about the Vintage jacket, and it has always been a strength of Spidi’s, is that it has a lowered back. Too many supposed bike jackets seem to be cut more for the street than the bike and, frankly, they just don’t work when you’re leant forward on the bars.

But to understand this jacket you really have to try it on. It’s as simple as they come, but none the worse for that. Rarely do biker jackets feel this nice to wear, and rarely do they look this cool.

It is available exclusively from Motolegends, and comes in size 46 (36” chest), all the way up to 58 (48” chest). It’s as classic and simple as it gets. It’s superbly comfortable and just a little bit special.

Please note: the video features the earlier version of the Vintage which did feature a removable thermal. This version has black stripes (very subtle) on a dark brwon base leather.