Having ridden the Blackjack for a week now, and with ~250mi on the clock, I figured I'd chime in with my take on this flat black scoot.
I started looking about 3mo ago. I had a used 2006 Honda Metropolitan; had fun on it. Needed a lot more power, but the size was about right.
I considered a used 2004 Vespa Granturismo 200 that was for sale here locally, for about $3k; similar price to the Blackjack. My thoughts & deliberations finally led me to a Blackjack. viewtopic.php?t=12367&highlight=gt200
Let's start with a list of Pros vs. Cons for the Blackjack...
PROS
* Looks great!
* Prima pipe sounds great! People seem to be surprised a scooter's making these noises...
* Tossable, easy to handle/maneuver
* Headlamp performance is good, though I had to adjust it up a little as it was pointing towards the ground when I got it
* ~75mpg on the first 3 tanks so far
* Center & side stands super easy to use
* Cancel button on the turn signal's great!
* Horn is as loud as people make it out to be. Still, I haven't had to use it yet, primarily due to the aforementioned Prima pipe!
* Peppy. On this one steep hill nearby, I'd top out at maybe 22mph indicated on the 50cc Honda. The Buddy showed 40bmph and was still accelerating when I ran out of road! At stoplights too, I'll almost always pull away from other cars.
CONS
* A bit more uncomfortable than I thought. Rides a bit rough. More on this later.
* Prima pipe, while sounding good, requires earplugs for trips more than 10 minutes max. It's seriously loud.
* Rear brake is f'n horrible. I get that it's cable-actuated; it was the same on the Metropolitan. But it's so mushy feeling and does nearly nothing to slow the scoot down. Yes, it's there, and you can check off the checklist as having a rear brake, but Fred & Barney Flintstone could do better.
* Buzzy. The bars buzz & vibrate quite a bit, especially at idle.
* Centerstand: I can't lean this thing on lefts. Centerstand scrapes wayyyy too easily.
* Wheels aren't balanced; there aren't any weights on them. Anytime I'm over 50+ bmph, you feel a slight wobble (though the noise it makes seems more alarming than it really is).
* Resonant sounds from the drivetrain between 42bmph & 47bmph. It's an oscillating sound, about maybe 3Hz (3x a second, not the sound frequency!). This sound I hear also resonates throughout the bike: butt, feet, hands all feel it. It's like a shudder, but not coming from the wheels. I think
NEITHER PROS NOR CONS. JUST COMMENTS, REALLY
* Front brake: OK, it looks super nice. True. I had wanted to get accustomed to the Buddy, in case of an emergency. So I found a traffic-free stretch of road, took Buddy up to 45-50bmph, and laid on the front brakes. OK, wobbles and tramlines a bit under hard braking, got it. On the third time, the right brake lever hit the right handgrip. Max braking was still there, barely, but all of a sudden, the front brake lever's all mushy now. Maybe the system wasn't purged of air; I'm willing to give it a flush to see, but the brake's friction point is seriously 1 full inch from where it was. There's a lot more play in the lever when braking action starts too. Not good. Although the calipers are the same as on a 125 or International 150, I figured the NCY brake disc would dissipate heat better than this. I'm quite disappointed, but as I said, hopefully this issue will be covered by warranty. Panic-stop braking (done similarly to the MSF course, plus 10mph), soft brake lever notwithstanding, is pretty good though.
* NCY adjustable shock: this took me up until mile 210 to get all dialled in. That's the main reason why I didn't want to write this review any earlier. The first few rides, I unloaded the shock nearly all the way, and stuck it on Soft/Slow. The ride was jarring. The only theory I have on this now is that the spring was so loose, it was rattling around; the damper didn't even have a chance to work. Then I cranked the shock down to slightly below halfway, and left it on soft damping. Still jarring, but in a different, indescribable way. Took spring perch to slightly above halfway on the threaded body, turned to full stiff. MUCH better! Good on smooth roads; bumpy ones were still a bit jarring. Backed off 10 clicks from firm (so about halfway), and it's about perfection right now. I might still administer minor changes, but won't vary too much from this now
* Speedometer: Illumination doesn't light past 60 mph on the speedo. Of course, you can only see this at night and perhaps one shouldn't go much more than 60bmph at night??
* Kickstart: Haven't mastered it yet. Relatively easy on the Metropolitan; not so this one.
Other observations
* Genuine seriously needs to pay a bit more attention to presenting a better brand. The two glaring parts are the keys to the scooter are still molded with "PGO" on them, and the Owner's manual is a joke. There's not much in the way of owner maintenance, as with a Honda scooter manual. Even the MSO has "PGO" all over it! What's the displacement? Marketed as a 150cc; manual says 148cc; emissions label says 149cc. C'mon! Additionally, with Genuine clearly doing business in the USA, convert the dang maintenance intervals to SAE standard units!
* Maintenance intervals: Which brings me to my second observation... Seriously, an oil change every 1000km (~620mi)? Apart from the initial oil change, Vespa requires one only every 2000mi or so. I might have been paying more per visit for servicing a Vespa, but at this rate, I'm hitting up my Genuine dealer over THREE TIMES as frequently! This is blatantly unacceptable. Maybe in other regions where PGO products find themselves in more inhospitable environments, I could understand that, but here in the US, I'd like to see at least 2000mi between oil change intervals.
* Insurance: YMMV of course; I'm at about $250/yr for everything, including comprehensive. Seems a little pricey to me.
* Saddle: The Blackjack's seat looks nice, but I'd like to move my arse a bit more rearward when I do my ninja tucks. I might have to buy a standard Buddy seat in black to do this. The saddle itself is quite cushy though!
* Front NCY shocks: not adjustable, right?
* Toolkit: what are these tools for? The laughably thin owner's manual doesn't reference it, IIRC.
* Power: I turned right out of a couple of streets, at WOT, as I'd gotten to doing this w/ the Metropolitan. I found it strange those first two times that the scoot wasn't very responsive to steering inputs when I do this. It'd want to go... well... straight. As I found out later, I was apparently doing wheelies by accident! It couldn't have been much more than 1/2" off the ground though...
All told, even with a bunch of gripes, this still is a pretty enjoyable scooter. I'm having a lot of fun with it. What combined to temper my excitement is likely the fact that my peers have had limited success in trying to talk me into motorcycling. As such, I may be looking to sell the Blackjack in the near future to fund that. I haven't decided yet; I might end up keeping both, but we'll see.
I'll continue to post more, including pictures in the next few weeks.
Thanks for reading!
Will it ever be a street bike? Of course not. But that doesn't mean it can't do a passable job of pretending it is 
Goes to show how good MB members are on here--I should have listened!
