The Vespa was designed by a man who hated Motorcycles

The birth of the greatest, most iconic, and perhaps most influential two-wheeled vehicle came from the mind of a motorcycle hater. More on that later. Now is a Vespa, or scooters in general, aren't they themselves motorcycles? For those of you who say no, a Vespa or a scooter or a moped isn't a motorcycle, I would point you to the 1946 patent for the Vespa which literally reads, a motorcycle with a rational arrangement of organs and elements with a frame with mudguards and covers concealing all mechanical parts. Essentially, a new kind of motorcycle. And when you read this description, it sounds kind of like a sport bike or a touring bike. It wasn't as though Piaggio's Vespa was the first of its kind, that is a small-wheeled two-wheeler, but nobody, and I mean nobody, had done a scooter anything like this. Like most great Italian motorcycle and scooter companies, it starts with aviation. Piaggio was an incredibly successful and innovative aeronautical company, especially through the First World War, and after. Piaggio engines broke over 30 aviation world records through the 30s. During the Second World War, though, Piaggio's Pontadera factory was bombed and it was from the ruins of this factory that the Vespa was born. Many Italian companies that had produced parts for the war found themselves with a question coming out of World War II in 1945. Basically, what should we make now? They needed to create something that could be mass-produced and really desired on a mass level, and for Enrico Piaggio, two options stood out. Kitchenware or vehicles. Thankfully, they chose vehicles. You have to understand, Italy was in shambles at this point, and much of Italy's transportation system, you know their roads, was basically ruined. So people were turning to bicycles to get around, but really bicycles weren't great for long distances. Motor cars were too expensive. Motor bikes were too adventurous for many. There was a demand for a new kind of vehicle. Something that was economical, affordable, and could traverse Italy's now broken transportation system. Enter the Vespa. Now the intention behind this new vehicle was essentially a better version of what was known as a motorcycle. When the average Italian thought of a motorcycle in the mid-1940s, they probably thought of something like a big Triumph Twin or maybe even a big Indian or Harley V-Twin. Something loud, something dirty, smelly, uncomfortable, unreliable, and well, just useless to them. A motorcycle at this point was more of a statement piece, and it was making a statement that the average Italian just didn't care to make. The goal behind the Vespa was to retain all that would be perceived as good from a motorcycle and ditch all the stuff that the general public just didn't care for. Now the Vespa's main features would be protective guards and panels to keep the mud and dirt off of the rider. It had to be as lightweight and as easy to use as possible, and it needed to have an overall just comfortable, usable, approachable riding position. Now the first model of the Vespa was based heavily on earlier prototypes known as the MP5 and especially the MP6. These were basically the first attempts at making this kind of vehicle, but when the original production version came out, the bike was sleeker and more appealing. The first model was known as the 98, and the first examples shown in 1946 were clearly influenced by Piaggio's background in aeronautics. Perhaps the standout and longest lasting feature of the Vespa from the very beginning was the frame design. This was a true monocoque design that would prove to be superior to a similar size tubular frame in pretty much every way. It was more robust, it was stiffer, with a tubular swinging arm supporting the engine and wheel assembly. The steel monocoque frame was so good it would pretty much go unchanged through all of the Vespa's long history. The 98 had no rear suspension, pretty rudimentary front suspension, although innovative, and the heart of it all was, unlike a traditional motorcycle, well it was hidden, that is the little 98cc two-stroke single. This was air cooled and later forced air cooling, and the engine was mounted horizontally to a three-speed transmission and drivetrain. The power plant and the drivetrain was all kind of one creative but simple little robust unit. Along with being hidden, the goal for the main mechanical parts was to have it be one just very uncomplicated single assembly with the rear wheel. So there was a transmission, but that transmission did not utilize a chain, again for maintenance purposes. It was really innovative. Early models featured what is known as a handlebar grip shift. Essentially the typical clutch and shifting setup from a motorcycle was combined into one. This was simple, this was approachable, the clutch was pulled in with the hand, the gear was shifted with that same hand, and the clutch was released with that hand. So less hand foot eye coordination required. The first version of the Vespa made 3.3 horsepower at 4500 RPM with a max speed of about 60 kph or 37-ish miles per hour. As a whole, mechanically speaking, the Vespa was nothing short of brilliant. Simply integrating lots of wonderful little designs to keep the package unobtrusive and usable, from the wiring to the cable housing, all of it was sort of housed and pushed around in this clean design language that really hadn't been seen on a two-wheeled vehicle prior to the Vespa. And because of this, perhaps the single most important and lasting and most influential feature of the Vespa was its design. This little vehicle blended form and function probably better than any two-wheeled vehicle ever. Now the design starts with this guy, Corradino d'Escanio, a guy who literally hated motorcycles. He hated everything about them, they were too dirty, too loud, difficult to work on, and in his opinion, just not for the masses. Now the countries that have taken on two-wheeled transportation in mass, well they've taken on bikes made from the influence of the Vespa. Traditional motorcycles have never really been brought in by the public as the main form of transportation. Prior to Piaggio's patent for the Vespa, early prototypes made by other designers, well they were too motorcycle-like for Piaggio, so he enlisted d'Escanio, the motorcycle hater, to lead the design for this new kind of two-wheeled vehicle. D'Escanio had designed what would be considered the first ever motor scooter for Innocenti, but his main focus was always aeronautic engineering, and so with the task of making a sort of crossover between car and motorbike, this was his design. Upon first glance of what d'Escanio had made, Enrico Piaggio exclaimed, it looks like a wasp, hence the name Vespa. Now at the heart of the design of the Vespa was really this hole, this lack of what was always on two-wheeled vehicles, something to step over and straddle. D'Escanio hated that aspect of motorcycles more than anything, so to create this hole, this place to rest your feet without straddling anything, he invented what would be the first load-bearing body motorcycle, basically a monocoque. He used his expertise as an engineer, and he made it so that the body of the Vespa absorbed stress in the same way, sort of, as an aircraft. You know, an aircraft absorbs stress, whether tension or compression or torsion, and it moves that stress around to certain places, mainly the fuselage, to sort of relieve it. In the example of the Vespa, and really any monocoque vehicle, the design works because it mainly keeps the load from being localized and disperses the stress throughout. Now with this entirely new type of two-wheeled vehicle, the rider could jump on the machine just as easily in a skirt as in pants. Now once on the bike, you wouldn't have to worry about your skirt getting all dirty, you were covered, literally. The front guards and foot panels kept the elements off of your lower half and moved the air around you for better aerodynamics. Many of the features of the Vespa are present on modern, fully-faired motorcycles. Today, and in its own day, the Vespa, it's really regarded as one of the most beautiful vehicles of all time. There's a reason it became also probably the most copied vehicle ever, but the more you dig into the history, the more you realize that the beauty really wasn't the point at all for Piaggio. For the Vespa, nothing was pointless. The body is the way it is, to either provide cooling or aerodynamics, or of course, ease of use. The lines are simple and subtle, and there's no unnecessary pieces. It all sort of plays apart and flows together seamlessly, and that would be true of really all Vespas going forward. At its core, the original Vespa design was meant to be a platform on which the company could evolve for new models. This was brilliant, and perhaps the standout feature of the Vespa, the fact that it could be molded and shaped into really whatever Piaggio wanted it to be. It meant that they could adapt as demand rose, and holy cow did demand rise. Upon its release, the Vespa actually didn't sell as well as Piaggio had hoped. In 1947, the first full year of sales just totaled about 2,500 units, which is not bad by most standards at this time, but nothing close to what Piaggio wanted. Then it hit 10,000 total sales in 1948, 20,000 in 1949, over 60,000 in 1950, and then a single Hollywood moment would bring in 100,000 sales alone when Aubrey Hepburn rode sidesaddle through Rome on a Vespa in the movie Roman Holiday. As the Vespa entered the 50s, the innovative little scooter was becoming so much more than just a utilitarian vehicle meant to help people traverse the Italian roads, it really was becoming a worldwide icon. Vespas were a new kind of cool among celebrities, much like the Bonneville would be later. People didn't just need it to get from point A to point B, it was something that people coveted. Sounds a lot like a motorcycle to me. In terms of public reception, perhaps the best comparison to the Vespa, in my mind at least, would be something like the Austin Mini. Just like the Vespa, that little vehicle was made solely to be practical and simple and really just be a utilitarian vehicle. The original Mini was designed for similar purposes, and it came out of a similar crisis, and it was meant to meet a need. The Mini was so focused on simplicity and economy, the designer refused to allow things like radios. He hated them, and he thought that they were useless. Even though everybody was getting a Mini, all he had to do was put a radio in it to make it that much better. But of course, there were loads of ashtrays. Gotta keep your priorities straight. But that little car became an icon so fast, much in the same way as the Vespa, and it became iconic quickly for very similar reasons. That kind of utilitarian simple design can often be so universally appealing, in a sense because it is so unassuming. The shape of the Mini was meant to create more space and a smaller package. That's really all they were trying to do. But in the end, it was and is beloved because it's just so cute and so oddly appealing. It speaks to a kind of authentic beauty that you can't just fabricate with a vehicle. Much like a race bike from the 60s, for example, the sleek, flowing lines, they're not there to make you drool. They're just there to make the bike go fast, and yet we all drool. If you like Vespas and, honestly, motorcycles at all, check out the best Disney movie as of late, in my opinion, which is Lucca, which is set in Italy and is centered around two adventurous boys longing for a Vespa to take them around the world. And if you like motorcycles, you'll like it. Just 10 years after its release, from 1946 to 1956, Piaggio had sold 1 million Vespas, and sales really haven't slowed much since. Today, the number is close to 20 million, largely because of how Piaggio handled their incredible success, continuing to make the Vespa with essentially the same spirit. In simple terms, there are two main periods of the Vespa in terms of technical innovation. The first was about 50 years and was centered around the single-cylinder two-stroke engine, and the second started in 1996, and this generation, so to speak, was centered around a four-stroke unit. During that first period, the little two-stroke was evolved continuously, but that evolution was pretty slow. Displacements would change, the model lineup would grow, but the bike basically stayed the same thing. Perhaps the most important and interesting innovation came about in 1958, when they updated the induction system to pretty much spray directly on the Conrad assembly, and this made it so that the two-stroke oil-gas mixture could be lowered to 2% instead of 5%, and this really made for less smoke, reduced fuel consumption, and this would go on to have a major lasting impact on two-stroke technology as a whole going forward. Of course, the body and the lines and some of the design would change over time, as many began to consider the early styling sort of dated, and at points the Vespa would, in my opinion, lose much of its early appeal, but the idea behind the scooter and what it was meant to do and what it was meant to be like really never changed. Besides the earliest Vespas, the standout model for many would be something like the 150GS, which came out in the mid-50s and was really born out of Piaggio's experience racing these models in trials and endurance and even road racing, often beating motorcycles in their class, by the way. The 150GS repped 10-inch wheels for the first time and had a 4-speed gearbox and made about 8 horsepower with a top speed of 100 kph or 62 mph. Now, those of you that know and have ridden scooters and souped up scooters, you know that's pretty fast on a little scooter, and it was really fast for 1955 when it came out. I mean, most motorcycles weren't doing that much faster than 60 mph and especially not those of a similar displacement as the Vespa. This marked a new trend in Vespa ownership, especially in Great Britain. Coupled with the mod culture as a whole, many scooter owners started working to make performance upgrades to their Vespa, finding new and innovative ways to save weight and to make more power, and most importantly, creatively express themselves through their two-wheeled vehicle. Though Vespa purists like the old two-strokes, there's no denying that the four-stroke Vespas which were launched on the 50th anniversary of the scooter, well, this was a good move for the company as it looked to the future. I'm also a four-stroke guy, so I don't really care. For me, it's really the design language that has changed so much that I don't love. There are scooters out there that today in some ways look more like the original Vespa than the new Vespas, and in many ways I see a Vespa and kind of just looks like every other scooter because of how influential it's been, you know, but I don't know, I don't love that it's kind of indistinguishable from everything else. I think for many, the influence and the importance of the Vespa is primarily about how it impacted, and let's be real, built, what we think of as a scooter or a moped. I know these terms mean different things, but most people use them interchangeably. A Vespa is like a Kleenex, you know, the name is almost interchangeable with the product. But besides scooters and scooter history, I think it's actually more interesting and perhaps more helpful to think about the Vespa within motorcycle and automotive history as a whole, and really the spirit behind and execution of the Vespa. I think that the lesson that you learn is really that you don't make something iconic by trying really hard to make something iconic. You do it by making something entirely new and really filling a need that many didn't even realize that they had. In the case of the Vespa, it was making the motorcycle simpler, more approachable for the masses, easier to use, more comfortable, and in doing that, the function led to a unique and interesting form that would really just become a new thing. And beauty really comes from function in a more powerful way than when you're just trying to make something beautiful. There's really no evidence that when the Vespa was designed that it was really trying to serve that purpose. You know, in motorcycle history, I think of bikes like the original GSX-R 750, which was a motorcycle developed with one goal in mind, which is performance. And so that full fairing and low handlebars, those things would become staples of sport bikes, whether ugly or beautiful. It's iconic because it served that important function and influenced, you know, so many bikes going forward. The 69 CB750 is a great example as well, designed to be really the ultimate motorcycle at every level in performance, in comfort, in ease of use, in reliability. Every single aspect of that bike was painstakingly designed to forward this one goal. But today, when we look at something like a CB750, we don't necessarily see those things, you know, whether it's the four and four exhaust or that big air-cooled engine, the plush seat. To me, I look at a bike like that and I look at it as a whole, and I see something cool and beautiful and appealing. I don't necessarily see the goal behind the product in every single element, but the more you research, the more you see that every element has a purpose. And that's what makes a cool motorcycle, in my opinion. Often, designing a motorcycle that has this kind of lasting impact, the kind that the Vespa had, means thinking outside the box about what a motorcycle is or what it can be. The immediately successful and essentially modern classic Honda Grom from the Gecko was a hit. Trust me, 50 years from now, we will be talking about the Grom a lot more than most motorcycles, because it's the fun that will be remembered by so many people, like the Vespa. But with the Grom, this bike really broke out of the norm in terms of small displacement motorcycles. You know, it was small enough and slow enough to be almost a scooter, but really motorcycly enough to be a motorcycle. It had a legit five-speed gearbox. It had awesome fun handling. It's a fun, quirky, peppy engine and an endlessly customizable platform. You think about it, who wants a legit motorcycle that's barely big enough to be considered a motorcycle, and the tires are pretty much the size of scooter tires, and whoever's riding it is unlikely to get away from those riding real motorcycles. Who wants a bike like that here in America? Most would say that the market analysis would have shown that nobody wanted that, but it turns out loads of people wanted a Grom. Sometimes making a great motorcycle means going beyond the stereotypes, and apparently, as in the case of the Vespa, sometimes all you need for a great motorcycle is a designer who apparently hates motorcycles.