In these days of $4-per-gallon gasoline, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to sell the idea of fuel-efficient motor scooters to frustrated motorists. But Scott Wroblewski figures it can’t hurt. Wroblewski, an aerospace engineer, and Gio Pizzo, a broker for a popular health drink, are converting the former Portobello restaurant on Mt. Washington into a scooter shop. “We’re not going to open for about two weeks, but we’re getting about five or six inquiries a day from people just walking by,” Wroblewski, 43, of Sewickley said Tuesday. The foot traffic Mt. Washington Scooters already is drawing is due largely to the several scooters parked daily outside the shop at the intersection of Shiloh Street and Southern Avenue. The nearby placard noting that some scooters can get nearly 100 miles a gallon probably helps. The gas-guzzling Dodge Caravan you bought back when $2.50 would get you a gallon — and perhaps a beef jerky on the side — certainly can’t come close to matching that mileage. Wroblewski and Pizzo, 57, of Mt. Washington hope their venture taps into a national trend. The Motorcycle Industry Council, a national trade association, recently reported that national first-quarter scooter sales jumped 24 percent over the same period in 2007. A motorcycle license is required to operate a motor scooter in Pennsylvania, and you probably wouldn’t want to ride one of them in a rush-hour rainstorm on the Parkway East. Still, Pizzo sees no reason scooter sales won’t continue to rise along with gas prices. He considers an investment of as little as $1,800 or so in a scooter as a modestly priced insurance policy against gas prices continuing to skyrocket indefinitely. “People are fed up with being bullied by the oil companies,” he said. “Scooters are fun, but they’re also practical: People find they can get around for pennies.” The old restaurant’s first floor, which has served as an office for Wroblewski since he bought the building in 2007 after Portobello closed, doesn’t yet resemble a showroom. But once dozens of the engineering textbooks and a few model airplanes are relocated, both men like the scooter shop’s potential. They are fond of its location. Mt. Washington Scooters sits just a few hundred feet away from a no-name gas station. What you pay there for a gallon of gas nearly rivals the price you might expect to be the high bid for a piece of fine crystal at a Sotheby’s auction. On those infrequent occasions when he needs to refuel his own scooter, Wroblewski said he usually stops there — in part because his visits infuriate the station’s owner. “I only buy a dollar’s worth at a time,” he said with a smile. “It really (ticks) her off.” You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand why.

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