Postcard from Rome – on a Vespa

Not-so fun fact: D’Ascanio hated motorcycles, but brought ingenuity, flair and practicality to the job, producing a spar-frame machine, with aircraft-like front suspension to aid wheel changing, an internal-mesh transmission which eliminated a drive chain and a modular construction which allowed new models to be quickly developed.

Innocenti, however, wanted a design to be based around steel tubing which he produced in volume (though it made a Lambretta very expensive to build) and after a row, D’Ascanio frumped off and took the design to Enrico Piaggio. The son of the company founder Rinaldo Piaggio, who started the company in 1884 making luxury ship interiors, Enrico was looking for a way of geeing up Renzo Spolti and Vittorio Casini’s bulky design for a fully enclosed motorcycle code named MP5, but which had quickly garnered the nickname Paperino (Donald Duck), which gives you some idea of its looks…

Piaggio christened D’Ascanio’s far-sleeker MP6 ‘Vespa’ (Wasp), as a result of its resonant engine note. The Wasp’s patent was registered in April 1946, the 8-inch wheeled, 98cc, three-speed machine making its debut at the Milan Design Show in the same year and quickly going on sale at a starter price of 55,000 lira, rising to 61,000 lira for the ‘deluxe’ model – exact modern comparisons are problematic, but the purchasing power of that money would be about £2000 in today’s money.

Lacking any dealers, Piaggio brilliantly placed the first scooters with Lancia dealers, which at the time sold highly exclusive, stylish and expensive cars.

And whatever you think of the role of Dante Giacosa’s Fiat Nuova 500 design which launched in 1957, the Vespa played an at least equal part in getting a post-war Italy mobile and on its feet. Generations of ‘Vespisti’ cloaked Italian cities in a miasma of burnt two-stroke oil until eventually municipal authorities demanded four strokes. There was even a new verb ‘Vespare’, which meant to go somewhere on a Vespa.

Sales were boosted by the machine’s appearance in Roman Holiday by as much as 100,000 units, or so the story goes.

Back in 1963, my uncle Richard had a Vespa, upon which I was photographed as an urchin with my brother Simon on the pillion. Ric and my aunt Patricia went everywhere on it. They even rode from Essex to Hastings on the day of the Great Train Robbery, or at least that was their story…

And it wasn’t just the ex-US-army parka-clad Mods that loved this stylish runaround with leg boards which protected valuable clothes from spray and dirt. This was chic, two-wheeled transport, easy to ride and women loved it, too. Film credits rolled in: Angie Dickinson on a Vespa in Jessica (1962), Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Gwen Stefani in a video for Now That You Got It (2007). There was an ultra-cool black and white William Klein photographic shoot with Nina Simone in Vogue magazine in 1960 too.

The rest, as they say, is history and in 80 years almost 20 million Vespas have been made in Italy, Vietnam and India. Like evergreen designs such as the Porsche 911, there have been good ones and bad ones and the market has been diluted, at first by Lambretta from Milan, but also rivals from Japan and now China.

Even at the time, there was fierce opposition: Honda’s 1958 Super Cub is the world’s best-selling motor-engined machine, ever. There were various rivals from Germany, such as the Heinkel Tourist and Zündapp Bella. From Japan we got the 1946 Fuji Rabbit and there was Edward Turner’s twin-cylinder Triumph Tigress. But as one Vespa insider says: ‘the line of evolution has never been cut.’

Which makes it darn hard for Marco Lambri, chief designer of Piaggio when times comes for a new model, but somehow Vespa remains Vespa. Now a classic, or icon as the company would have it, Piaggio’s success has been to allow every country to adopt its own branding.

‘Mods only in the UK, in Japan a high-style scooter,’ my contact tells me, ‘but in France and Germany, it’s all about young girls having independence – a Vespa has always been easy to ride.’

And while it’s more expensive than its plastic-scooter rivals, Vespa is also cool as well as practical. In the last decade, Piaggio has produced over two million Vespas; the appeal is undimmed it seems.

A measure of this is the succession of limited editions which pretty much sell out. The latest is the Vespa Edizione Ottantesimo launched at the Rome celebrations. This pistachio-green machine is based on the 310 range with a 25bhp single-cylinder engine, anti-lock brakes, electronic traction control and keyless starting.

In the furnace-like conditions of the Roman capital, Piaggio was juggling the needs of ultra-glamorous influencers having a Roman holiday and a few riding hacks such as your correspondent. It transpired that the machines and the photographer had ended up on opposite sides of the city, separated by the notorious Roman rush hour. I’ve done some risky things in my life but this seemed top five.

Would I like an escort?

Would I ever.

Would Fulvio Virgili, Moto Guzzi racer, dealer and workshop owner do?

Oh I think so!

In 80 years, everything and nothing has changed on a Vespa. ‘There is no rival for the Vespa,’ said one of the Piaggio high ups. And in a way, he’s right, there isn’t a single vehicle that will get you and your gorgeous pouting companion across town faster, safer or more stylishly.

You sit with your feet flat on the boards, twist the throttle and go. Hey presto, you’re in front of the traffic. Like all small-wheeled scooters, it thumps through Roman potholes but you learn to read the road. The switchgear is simple beyond belief – the biggest button being the horn, of course.

The brakes (front on the right lever, rear on the left) are strong and confidence inspiring and if it’s running out of puff at 50mph, that makes it perfect urban transport. We sliced through the traffic, squiffled and squeezed between the buses, bounded off the bumps and leaned hard on the cobbles round the Piazza Fountain roundabout.

And just when I thought I couldn’t lean any more, a wee flibbertigibbet came past on the outside in a diaphanous spaghetti-strap summer dress and open-toed sandals.

‘Rome is beautiful,’ said Fulvio as we uncharacteristically stopped at a traffic light. I was thinking of the girl, but he gestured backwards down the boulevard at St Peter’s church, bathed in umber light and looking for all the world like a crashed space ship.

Well, yes, Fulvio, it certainly is.

As my insider friend says: ‘Vespa is not something just to move around on, you need to want a Vespa.’

And do you know? I’m finding that I do; very much indeed.