History Of The Scooter

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The scooter was invented in 1947 as a low cost alternative to the automobile
in war-ravaged Europe – it was designed as transport for the masses and it
caught on so quickly that it became one of the great transport phenomena
to sweep the world in the 20th century. The Vespa (which means “wasp” in
Italian) was the result of Enrico Piaggio’s determination to create a viable
alternative to the automobile for the masses. As the war drew to a close,
Enrico studied every possible solution to get production in his plants going
again.
The origins
Piaggio was founded in Genoa in 1884 by twenty-year-old Rinaldo Piaggio.
The first activity of Rinaldo's factory was luxury ship fitting. But by the end
of the century, Piaggio was also producing rail carriages, goods vans, luxury
coaches and engines, trams and special truck bodies. World War I brought
a new diversification that was to distinguish Piaggio activities for many
decades. The company started producing aeroplanes and seaplanes. At the
same time, new plants were springing up. In 1917 Piaggio bought a new
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plant in Pisa, and four years later it took over a small plant in Pontedera
which first became the centre of aeronautical production (propellers,
engines and complete aircraft) and then, after World War II, witnessed the
birth of the iconic Vespa.
From aeronautics to individual mobility: the transformation of 1946
The war, a radical watershed for the entire Italian economy, was equally
important for Piaggio. The Pontedera plant built the state-of-the-art fourengine P 108 equipped with a 1,500-bhp Piaggio engine in passenger and
bomber versions. However Piaggio’s aeronautical plants in Tuscany
(Pontedera and Pisa) were important military targets and on August 31,
1943 they were razed to the ground by Allied bombers, after the retreating
Germans had already mined the pillars of the buildings and irrevocably
damaged the plants.
To rebuild the Pontedera plants, Enrico Piaggio asked the Allies, who then
occupied part of the grounds and of the buildings still standing, to arrange
for the machinery transferred to Germany and Biella in northern Italy to be
brought back. This was done rapidly and Armando and Enrico Piaggio then
began the process of rebuilding. The hardest task went to Enrico, who was
responsible for the destroyed plants of Pontedera and Pisa.
Enrico Piaggio’s decision to enter the light mobility business was based on
economic assessments and sociological considerations. It took shape
thanks to the successful co-operation of the aeronautical engineer and
inventor Corradino D’Ascanio (18911981).
The origins of the scooter
A motor scooter was produced, based on a small motorcycle made for
parachutists. The prototype, known as the MP 5, was nicknamed
“Paperino” (the Italian name for Donald Duck) because of its strange shape,
but Enrico Piaggio did not like it, and he asked Corradino D’Ascanio to
redesign it.
But the aeronautical designer did not like motorcycles. He found them
uncomfortable and bulky, with wheels that were difficult to change after a
puncture. Worse still, the drive chain made them dirty. However, his
aeronautical experience found the answer to every problem. To eliminate
the chain he imagined a vehicle with a stress-bearing body and direct mesh;
to make it easier to ride, he put the gear lever on the handlebar; to make
tyre changing easier he designed not a fork, but a supporting arm similar to
an aircraft carriage. Finally, he designed a body that would protect the
driver so that he would not get dirty or dishevelled. Decades before the
spread of ergonomic studies, the riding position of the Vespa was designed
to let you sit comfortably and safely, not balanced dangerously as on a highwheel motorcycle.
Corradino D’Ascanio only needed a few days to refine his idea and prepare
the first drawings of the Vespa, first produced in Pontedera in April 1946. It
got its name from Enrico Piaggio himself who, looking at the MP 6
prototype with its wide central part where the rider sat and the narrow
“waist”, exclaimed, “It looks like a wasp!” And so the Vespa was born.
On April 23, 1946 Piaggio & C. S.p.A. filed a patent with the Central Patents
Office for inventions, models and brand names at the Ministry of Industry
and Commerce in Florence, for “a motor cycle with a rational complex of
organs and elements with body combined with the mudguards and bonnet
covering all the mechanical parts”. In a short space of time the Vespa was
presented to the public, provoking contrasting reactions. However, Enrico
Piaggio did not hesitate to start mass production of two thousand units of
the first Vespa 98 cc. The new vehicle made its society debut at Rome’s
elegant Golf Club, in the presence of U.S. General Stone who represented
the Allied military government. Italians saw the Vespa for the first time in
the pages of Motor (March 24, 1946) and on the black and white cover of La
Moto on April 15, 1946.
From scepticism to “miracle”
Manufacturers and market experts were divided: on one side the people
who saw the Vespa as the realisation of a brilliant idea, and on the other th
attention and growing interest around his product, with a number of
initiatives that included the foundation and spread of the Vespa Clubs.
The Vespa became the Piaggio product par excellence, while Enrico
personally tested prototypes and new models. His business prospects
transcended national frontiers and by 1953, thanks to his untiring
determination, there were more than ten thousand Piaggio service points
throughout the world, including America and Asia. By then the Vespa Clubs
counted over 50,000 members, all opposed to the “newborn” Innocenti
Lambretta. No less than twenty thousand Vespa enthusiasts turned up at
the Italian “Vespa Day” in 1951. Riding a Vespa was synonymous with
freedom, with agile exploitation of space and with easier social
relationships. The new scooter had become the symbol of a lifestyle that
left its mark on its age: in the cinema, in literature and in advertising, the
Vespa appeared endlessly among the most significant symbols of a
changing society.
In 1950, just four years from its debut, the Vespa was manufactured in
Germany by Hoffman-Werke of Lintorf; the following year licensees opened
in Great Britain (Douglas of Bristol) and France (ACMA of Paris); production
began in Spain in 1953 at Moto Vespa of Madrid, now Piaggio España,
followed immediately by Jette, outside Brussels. Plants sprang up in
Bombay and Brazil; the Vespa reached the USA, and its enormous
popularity drew the attention of the Reader’s Digest, which wrote a long
article about it. But that magical period was only the beginning. Soon the
Vespa was produced in 13 countries and marketed in 114, including
Australia, South Africa (where it was known as the “Bromponie”, or moor
pony), Iran and China. And it was copied: on June 9, 1957, Izvestia reported
the start of production in Kirov, in the USSR, of the Viatka 150 cc, an almost
perfect clone of the Vespa.
Piaggio had begun very early on to extend its range into the light transport
sector. In 1948, soon after the birth of the Vespa, production of the threewheeler Ape van (the Italian for “bee”) derived from the scooter began, and
the vehicle was an immediate success for its many possible uses. Numerous
imaginative versions of the Vespa appeared, some from Piaggio itself, but
mainly from enthusiasts - for example, the Vespa Sidecar, or the VespaAlpha of 1967, developed with Alpha-Wallis for Dick Smart, a screen secret
agent, which could race on the road, fly, and even be used on or
underwater. The French army had a few Vespa models built specially to
carry arms and bazookas, and others that could be parachuted together
with the troops. Even the Italian army asked Piaggio for a parachutable
scooter.
1956: the Vespa crosses the one million mark
While the Lambretta was starting to enjoy some success, the Vespa was
being copied and imitated in a thousand ways: but the uniqueness of the
vehicle ensured Piaggio a very long period of success, so much so that in
November 1953, the 500,000th unit left the line, followed by the one
millionth in June 1956. In 1960 the Vespa passed the two million mark; in
1970 it reached four million, and over ten million in 1988, making it a
unique phenomenon in the motorised two-wheeler sector it has sold over
16 million units to date. From 1946 to 1965, the year Enrico Piaggio died,
3,350,000 Vespas were manufactured in Italy alone: one for every fifty
inhabitants.
The boom of the Vespa, and the different business prospects of the Piaggio
brothers, with Enrico concentrating on light individual mobility in Tuscany
and Armando on the aeronautical business in Liguria, led the company to
split. On February 22, 1964, Enrico Piaggio acquired the share in Piaggio &
C. S.p.A. held by his brother Armando, who then founded “Rinaldo Piaggio
Industrie Meccaniche Aeronautiche” (I.A.M. Rinaldo Piaggio).
The Vespa 50 had appeared the previous year, 1963, following the
introduction of a law in Italy making a numberplate obligatory on twowheelers over 50 cc. The new scooter was exempt from this law and was an
immediate success. In Italy sales of vehicles with numberplates decreased
by 28 per cent in 1965 compared to the previous year. On the other hand,
the Vespa, with its new “50” series, was a great success. The light Vespa
was a successful addition to the Piaggio range and this displacement is still
in production. To date almost 3,500,000 Vespa 50s have been built in
different models and versions, the latest being the ET4 50 launched in
autumn 2000. It is the first four stroke Vespa 50cc, and has a record range
of over 500 km with a full tank.
The Vespa PX (125, 150 and 200cc) is the biggest sales success in the entire
history of the Vespa. It is the “original vintage” - launched in 1977, it has
sold over two million units, and as such is a favourite among those with a
sense of nostalgia but also with the younger market.
Records, sports and long distance travel: around the world with the Vespa
The Vespa also has a racing career behind it. In Europe back in the Fifties, it
took part, often successfully, in regular motor cycle races (speed and offroad), as well as unusual sporting ventures.
In 1952 the Frenchman Georges Monneret built an “amphibious Vespa” for
the Paris-London race and successfully crossed the Channel on it. The
previous year Piaggio itself had built a Vespa 125cc prototype for speed
racing, and it set the world speed record for a flying kilometre at an average
of 171.102 km/h.
The Vespa also scored a great success at the 1951 “International 6 Days” in
Varese, winning 9 gold medals, the best of the Italian motorcycles. That
same year saw the first of innumerable rallies with the Vespa: an expedition
to the Congo, which was to be the first of a series of incredible journeys on
a scooter that was intended primarily to solve the problems of urban and
intercity traffic.
Giancarlo Tironi, an Italian University student, reached the Arctic Circle on
a Vespa. The Argentine Carlos Velez crossed the Andes from Buenos Aires
to Santiago del Chile. Year after year, the Vespa gained popularity among
adventure holiday enthusiasts: Roberto Patrignani rode one from Milan to
Tokyo; Soren Nielsen in Greenland; James P. Owen from the USA to Tierra
del Fuego; Santiago Guillen and Antonio Veciana from Madrid to Athens;
Wally Bergen on a grand tour of the Antilles; the Italians Valenti and
Rivadulla in a tour of Spain; Miss Warral from London to Australia and
back; the Australian Geoff Dean took one on a round-the-world tour.
Pierre Delliere, Sergeant in the French Air Force, reached Saigon in 51 days
from Paris, going through Afghanistan. The Swiss Giuseppe Morandi
travelled 6,000 km, much of it in the desert, on a Vespa he had bought in
1948. Ennio Carrega went from Genoa to Lapland and back in 12 days. Two
Danish journalists Elizabeth and Erik Thrane, a brother and sister, reached
Bombay on a Vespa. And it is impossible to count the many European
scooter riders who have reached the North Cape on their Vespas.
Few know that in 1980 two Vespa PX 200s ridden by M. Simonot and B.
Tcherniawsky reached the finishing line of the second Paris-Dakar rally.
Four-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Henri Pescarolo helped the French
team put together by Jean-François Piot.
The Vespa continues to travel: in 1992 Giorgio Bettinelli, writer and
journalist, left Rome on a Vespa and reached Saigon in March 1993. In 1994-
95 he rode a Vespa 36,000 km from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. In 199596
he travelled from Melbourne to Cape Town - over 52,000 km in 12 months.
In 1997 he started out from Chile, reaching Tasmania after three years and
150,000 km on his Vespa across the Americas, Siberia, Europe, Africa, Asia
and Oceania. All in all, Bettinelli has travelled 254,000 km on a Vespa.
Vespa, the cinema and the USA
Stylish and unmistakably Vespa, exceptionally comfortable to ride with low environmental-impact engines and disk brakes, the new-generation ET
models are now also sold in numerous "Vespa Boutiques" in the US (over 60
from California to Florida and from Hawaii to New York, with the latest two
boutiques in SoHo and Queens).
Having returned to the US in 2000 after exiting the market in 1985 because
of new emissions legislation that targeted two stroke engines, the Vespa
was an immediate success all over again, and has achieved a market share
of 20 per cent of the small (40,000 units a year) but growing scooter sector.
6,000 Vespas were sold in the first year, 2001, and over 7,000 in 2002.
But the Vespa isn't just a market phenomenon. It forms part of social
history. In the "Dolce Vita" years the Vespa became a synonym for scooter,
foreign reporters described Italy as "the country of the Vespa" and the
Vespa's role in social history, not just in Italy but abroad, can be seen from
its presence in hundreds of films. And it's a story that continues to be told
today.
Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in "Roman Holiday " were only the first
of a long series of international actors and actresses to be seen on the
world's most famous scooter in a filmography that goes from
“Quadrophenia” to “American Graffiti”, from “The Talented Mr. Ripley” to
“102 Dalmatians”, not to mention “Dear Diary ”.
In photo shoots, films and on the set, the Vespa has been a "travel
companion" for names like Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Geraldine
Chaplin, Joan Collins, Jayne Mansfield, Virna Lisi, Milla Jovovich, Marcello
Mastroianni, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper,
Anthony Perkins, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Nanni Moretti, Sting, Antonio
Banderas, Matt Damon, Gérard Depardieu, Jude Law, and Eddie Murphy

This is a satirical website. Don't take it Seriously. It's a joke.