Vespa Scooter
| Designer | Corradino D'Ascanio for Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. |
| Dates | First manufactured in 1946 |
Description
Piaggio, founded in 1884 by Rinaldo Piaggio, initially a factory producing locomotives and airplanes, after the WWII, prompted by the ruinous state of Italy's roads and seriously damaged automobile market, engaged with the light mobility industry. The founder's son, Enrico Piaggio, co-operated with Corradino D'Ascanio, a prominent Italian aeronautical engineer and inventor, to create a modern, simple and economic mean of transportation, which would be affordable for the masses. This cooperation gave birth to Vespa.
D'Ascanio designed Vespa basing it on small motorcycles made for parachutists. As, personally he hated motorbikes, he wanted to create a vehicle which would be easy to drive and comfortable for two passengers. He designed the scooter body to keep the passengers clean and dry. As the drive chain made the passengers dirty, D'Ascanio replaced it with the internal mesh transmission. He designed a complete covering for the engine, which concealed its greasy mechanism. A characteristic front protection shield, absent in the "open" motorcycles, protected the passengers even more, while a flat floorboard protected as well their feet. Vespa's small 8-inch wheels occupying little space allowed the leg area to be designed so it could be comfortable for all passenger types, including women wearing dresses or skirts.To make it easier to ride, considering wheels are difficult to change after a puncture, he put the gear change on the handlebar. D'Ascanio replaced also the typical front fork with a suspension arm similar to an aircraft landing gear, which made wheel changing even easier.
Such a compact and functional design made it possible to modify different features of the scooter, which allowed the future development of numerous new models. During the 60 year existence of Vespa on the market Piaggio produced some 140 different models. Though, their design remained much the same and every single model maintained distinctive features of original Vespa. What is more, the originary models from the seventies stil have a great appeal as recent most successful models tend to be retro - inspired, upgraded versions of their grandparents.
| 1946 Vespa 98 | 1991 Vespa Special Revival | 2006 Vespa GTV 125 |
A Personal View
In the automobiles industry there are numerous vehicles which have the status of an icon. One can argue what is the most iconic car in the world. For some it will be a Cadillac, for others a Ferrarri, Porche, Rolls Royce or even a Mini Cooper and each of them will be right as these vehicles symbolise and are famous for different reasons. Same can be applied to motorcycles with such icons as Harley Davidson or Ducati. However, this does not concern the field of scooters as there is just one vehicle to have the status of the most legendary two-wheeler of all time. The first globally successful, best selling and still the most popular scooter worldwide is Vespa. Since its launch in April 1946, some 17 million scooters have been produced and sold to customers in 180 countries.
The popularity of Vespa derives from its fundamental features: it is affordable, comfortable and easy to drive. It was introduced to the market at a time when hardly anyone could afford an automobile or other means of transport. Vespa was not only relatively cheap, but as well suited for every occasion since, being designed the way to keep the passengers nice and clean, could be driven in every type of outfit. This made it suitable for ladies, making Vespa not only a product for the masses, but a unisex artefact, a tool of emancipation. So it became a social phenomenon: low cost mean of transport for everyone, as described by a 60's advertisement the "nobility of mobility".
But Vespa is not just an industrial product. It is a symbol, a cultural icon. In the 50's it symbolised the economic reborn and reconstruction of Italy, innovation and industrial revolution. In the 60's it started to represent the 'continental' lifestyle of young people. After the war, in days of "dolce vita", the Vespa offered young Italians the freedom to ride carefree through bathed in light squares and antique shadowed alleys or head for the seaside or the country at an affordable price. In 1963 Piaggio launched even a model for teenagers, the Vespa 50, which could be ridden without a driving licence or registration number by youngsters aged from fourteen. Vespa became a symbol of youth, an icon representing dreams, the desire for freedom and fun. From one generation to another it remained as such, evolving and subtly modifying, though never alerting, its image.
This status is shown by its appearance in numerous movies. There is a long filmography of at least 50 movies that feature Vespa for more than one sequence. "Roman Holiday" was the first of a long series of internationally recognised movies which shown its characters driving Vespa. In this case it was such fames as Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn who travelled around Rome on this world's famous scooter. Other examples are "American Graffiti"(1973), "The Spy Who Love Me"(1977), "Quadrophenia"(1979) or "The Talented Mr. Ripley"(1999) and most recently "Alfie"(2004), "The Interpreter"(2005) or "The Bourne Ultimatum"(2007). Vespa was ridden by such stars as 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, Eddie Murphy or Owen Wilson. Some stars posed on a Vespa like Ursula Andress, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Quinn, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jennifer Lopez.
Finally, Vespa is an icon of Italian style and a brilliant product vigorously alive on the market for 60 years exemplifying the outstanding accomplishment of Made in Italy brands. The Times called it "a completely Italian product, such as we have not seen since the Roman chariot". Vespa was born as a result of innovative design of an aeronautical engineer, who integrated his experience with and a creative approach to construct this incredible invention. Vespa was the first mean of personal transport which allowed personalisation as particular paint, personalised saddles, additional chrome plating. Generally, it is constantly upgrading with small aesthetics variations and, at the same time, updating in terms of technology. It is this creativity which enabled Italy to be reborn from the post war crisis. And this quality is a distinct feature of Italian design: the requisite of style as the recipe for the good life. And, in fact, Vespa is a symbol of stylish personal transportation. It has its personality and unique, clearly identifiable design. It emanates class and elegance. Vespa is a perfect combination of trendy design and stylish functionality. It is a style statement in itself. It transcends the capriciousness of fashion. Being able to influence fashion for decades it never passed out of it. It is timeless.
Context
Through the history, within the scooter sector there were various models of scooters produced by different companies. The first mass produced and publicly sold two-wheeler was launched by Hildebrand & Wolfmueller in 1894, but high prices and technical difficulty made this product unsuccessful. Other models were produced across the world, in France, USA and the UK but they also did not achieve a widespread diffusion. During the WWII the Cushman Company was producing various models of scooters which were widely used by the US military. Their most successful model, the Eagle, was produced for about 16 years.
After WWII, there was a tendency within the companies, which during the war manufactured aircraft, to re-orientate and began producing low cost two-wheelers. What Piaggio did in Italy, was accomplished in Japan by Mitsubishi. Its Silver Pigeon and Fuji Rabbit initiated the Japanese boom of two wheelers. However, although extremely popular in Japan these products did not manage to gain international fame. The same fate was shared by German Heinkel and Zundapp Bella, US Harley-Davidson Trooper and British Triumph Tigress also produced by aviation companies.
In the 80's new, upgraded versions of scooters, so called maxi scoters began to be released and become popular, especially in Japan and far-east Asia. These two wheelers represented a larger, sporty, higher-performance vehicles group and therefore formed a separate sector on their own.
Nowadays, nearly all major scooter manufacturers produce such maxi vehicles and the few still engaged in production of traditional scooters is not a competition for Piaggio's Vespa. There is no such a globally successful and internationally diffused scooter as Vespa. There are models which gained a huge popularity, but just within their homeland territory. In Italy, such a competition is represented by Lambretta - an Innocenti product also designed by D'Ascanio and launched a couple of months after Vespa. It is still popular in Italy, maybe because its extreme similarity to Vespa. Two wheelers are particularly popular in far-east Asia and one of most successful scooters is Taiwanese Kymco. Very popular contemporary scooters are produced by Japanese Yamaha and models such as AEROX are widely diffused across the world, though none of them become an internationally recognised style icon.
| Lambretta | Yamaha AEROX | Kymco |
Links
http://www.uk.vespa.com/en_UK/ - Vespa Official Web Site
http://www.vespaworldclub.com/homepage/tabid/93/language/en-US/Default.aspx - Vespa World Club
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa - The history of Vespa edited by Wikipedia
| Author: | Dominika Stelmaszuk | Date: | March 2008 |