Published in L'Officiel Hommes Italia No. 8

         Enrico Piaggio’s postwar dream, as he rebuilt his father’s aircraft factory, was to provide low cost transportation to the Italian people, dazed and broken by the war. That production began in 1946 was something of an industrial miracle, speaking both to Piaggio’s determination and to the success of the Marshall Plan. That his product was the first Vespa acted like a revitalizing aperitivo to the thirsty country. The aeronautical engineer Corradino D’Ascanio kept the individual mobility of a motorcycle but eliminated its unsightly and oily features, and his final design was like nothing seen before. His concept encapsulated the post-war Italian style that would soon become world famous. The Times called the Vespa “a completely Italian product, such as we have not seen since the Roman chariot”. 

         With a price tag of 55,000 lira (about €90) and a payment plan to boot, the masses were suddenly mobile. Chic, sleek and sexy, its curvy leg shield kept the driver dirt free and la bella figura was maintained. The upright riding position did not wrinkle the trousers nor impede the wearing of suits. A Vespa facilitated socializing and courting and was a catalyst for a new, emancipated post-war lifestyle. To rely on the bus or trolley to entertain a girl was a fool’s errand. With your trusty scooter, you could zip Sophia Lauren wherever she wanted to go. By 1950 production was 60,000 a year. This success spoke of the freedom, the style, the sheer joy that a Vespa offered. The city beckoned and the girls were willing to climb on the back and clutch tightly while you buzzed to the next café. 

         What the Italians had already figured out the rest of the world discovered in 1953 with the release of Roman Holiday, winner of three Oscars and the first Hollywood movie filmed entirely in Italy. The Americans were smitten with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn weaving their way through Rome on a Vespa 125. One could also catch brief glimpses of what came to be known as “Continental” style in the background. By comparison, Peck’s American sack suits suddenly looked a bit frumpy. It was as if a council of wise men had met in secret and drawn up a style manifesto. The lines of the Vespa perfectly complemented the growing popularity of the sleek Italian suiting silhouette. Brioni opened its doors just one year before Vespa production began, amid the still smoking rubble of 1945. Such cultivated and trend-setting dressers like Gary Cooper, John Wayne and Cary Grant were soon Brioni-clad. And in your Roman style suit, how better to get around town than on a Vespa? As Hollywood increased Italian productions, the list of celebrity Vespa owners grew: the previously mentioned Wayne and Cooper, along with Marlon Brando, Dean Martin, Marcello Mastrioianni, Henry Fonda, Jean-Paul Belmondo, to name a few. With debonair Hollywood actors as ambassadors and production in 13 countries, Piaggio’s Vespa became a worldwide smash, and Italian style was exported the world over. No surprise that foreign reporters would soon refer to Italy as “the country of the Vespa”. 

          The millionth scooter left the plant in June 1956, just a short decade since its invention. But they were more than a market phenomenon. The Vespa forms part of social history, most importantly for Italy in the “Dolce Vita” years but also igniting trends abroad. In England, the Mods adopted all things Italian, from the thin lapelled suits to the Vespa scooters. The UK was easily the largest market for Piaggio outside of Italy. The cult film Quadrophenia (1979) pays homage to the British mod scene of 1964. Sting’s character Ace Face is the focus of awe and on his Vespa GS, replete with chrome and mirrors, the hoi polloi scattered. Across the pond, Americans could purchase a Vespa from the Sears & Roebuck catalog as easily as ordering a pair of socks. And from 1951 to 1966 Americans did just that, purchasing hundreds of thousands of Vespa Allstates from Sears. Even the car obsessed movie American Graffiti, set in 1962 California, saw a Vespa cameo.  

         After 65 years in existence, and more than 17 million bikes sold, the Vespa is firmly established as an Italian icon of style and technology, of form and function. The extraordinary two-wheeler is regarded as the scooter, its name synonymous with a scooter itself. Its look and personality are inseparable from the Italian character. Charming, refined, high-spirited, polished, perhaps a tad frivolous, but always head turning, the Vespa—like the Italians—brings a bit of gioia di vivere into the world.