History about VESPA

Introduction

If you’ve ever been to Italy you’ve probably smelled, heard, and seen the buzz of a Vespa scooter going by, especially in the main squares of towns and cities in the afternoon. If you haven’t been such a world traveler, but you’re a movie-phile than you’re very likely familiar with the classic, a Roman Holiday, with Audrey Hepburn’s whimsical ride around Rome on the famous two-wheeled transport.

The Vespa scooter has been around since the mid 1940s, just after the end of World War II, and realized its creation as a result of that global conflict. Since then, the Vespa rose in popularity and waned with the widespread enjoyment of the car. But in recent years since 1997 the Vespa has seen a resurgence again. Unlike some of its other European cousins, such as the Lambretta scooter or the German Bella, the Vespa is enjoying a reincarnated return with a modern line of models. This in turn has boosted awareness for the vintage models again, as well as popularity and demand.

Built by Piaggio, the founding company and still the current manufacturer of the scooter, the Vespa can found on every continent and sometimes is some very oddball locations where one would not expect an Italian scooter to end up.

The most noticeable feature of the scooter has historically been the fact that the scooter body, with all its curves and sculpting of pressed steel, is also the frame of the vehicle as well. This unique approach to structure is not common; most motorcycles and scooters use a core frame and build body panels and parts around it. First used with the initial Vespa models, the same approach continues to be used today with modern Vespa models.

Early History

World War II and related Allied bombing devastated industrial factories and facilities in both Italy and Germany, given their alliance under the Nazi government. This devastation made it impossible for manufacturers and industrialists who ran large mechanical facilities prior to the war to immediately get back up on their feet and begin producing again. One of the industries directly impacted was Italian aviation. Not only were large scale facilities no more, but when the Italian government re-established itself under Allied occupation and later as its own country again, it made immediate agreements not to get back into the plane production business right away. While plane-building was allowed, the number and capabilities of models produced were barred or restricted.

One of the facilities and companies that found itself effectively shut down was the Pontedera facilities that had been responsible for fighter plan production prior and during the War. The factory itself was essentially flattened to the ground by bombing and related fires. The factory managers realized there was no chance of going back to business as usual and there was no infrastructure demand to support going into automotive production either, a typical alternative such factories can be retooled into working on. Instead, anyone thinking about still producing vehicles had to think smaller.

Enrico Piaggio, the son of the founder Piaggio years before, began looking around and taking in what was really necessary for the population. Transportation was still vital and important, but due to the shattered economy and a lack of much income, the population couldn’t afford much. A smaller, more basic form of transport was needed that could be reliable, functional, and cheap to afford. As any struggling college student today can tell you, scooter fits the bill nicely in such situations.

The Modern Generation

Old generation

By 1990 sales for the Vespa scooter had plummeted badly compared to previous decades. Indian markets were fully-served by government factories manufacturing Bajaj and LML copies of the Vespa. Asian markets were saturated with Honda and Yamaha scooters that were cheaper and easier to operate. U.S. markets had forgotten about the Vespa and opted for Japanese imports that ran cleaner engines. Italy and England seemed to be the remaining bastions for the old brand. All that Vespa was producting was the PX model, which was just a rehash of the 1970s P-series model.

Piaggio had to rethink and redesign its scooter. The critical demands included a modern design, a cleaner engine, an attractive package that would once again bring in the youth, and a product that appealed to a generation that wasn’t even born when the last 1970s model was produced. The approach of the ET line of Vespas was created.

The ET model shed some of the weight of the all-metal PX and brought the engine range down in size. Instead of sticking to one engine choice, the ET line allowed swappable engine sizes ranging from 50cc to 150cc. The engine model was completely replaced as well with a four-stroke design to address cleaner emission regulations, both in Europe and in the U.S. The body retained the basic shape of the traditional Vespa, but it removed all the various metal parts and made the body frame more streamlined. The transmission was changed to an automatic version versus the old manual hand-shift approach, much to the chagrin of Vespa purists. The new scooter still kept the 10 inch size wheels, maintaining the scooters maneuverability, particularly at a time when many urban areas were suffering from a glut of car traffic. As a result, the new product mix worked and the Vespa was once again allowed back into the U.S. as a new vehicle in 2001.

Five years earlier, Piaggio had celebrated 50 calendar years with the Vespa and over 15 million units sold since 1946. But had it not been for the ET, that birthday might have been one of the last for the historical scooter. Despite the success of the ET, however, Piaggio was still suffering financially.

New generation

The company had created too much operational and financing debt for itself not being efficient in its fiscal commitments. Piaggio was about to find itself in bankruptcy by 2003, being unable to raise sufficient revenue to offset debt via sales and being undercut still by cheaper Asian competition. Early on Piaggio had left the control of its original family owner. In 1959 the same family that owned Fiat took over Piaggio Incorporated. This ownership lasted until 1999 when it was then bought by Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, looking for some kind of an investment payoff in a deal destined to then be sold to the Chinese. Subsequently, the company was up for sale again but did not budget until 2003.

Robert Colaninno stepped with a 100 million Euro stake via Immsi SpA. The trade back was a third ownership of Piaggio and direct management control of the company. Given that Morgan Grenfell was more investor than manager, they took a turn with Colaninno at the steering wheel. 

Modeling operations after Japanese factory efficiency modes, Piaggio forced every new scooter to be built back on the assembly line again for reduced costs and scales of economy in resource/material ordering. Colaninno linked labor benefits to performance and quality as rated by customer approval. Nobody was fired, but nobody got a raise either until the company again proved its merit to the consumer. Deadlines were imposed again, getting idle workers pumping out product. 

The ongoing financing challenge needed to be met by a much larger scale of funding. This was not going to be raised by Piaggio continuing to follow the private investor road. To match the competition of Honda and Yamaha, the Italian scooter company was going to need stronger leverage. The public investment market was the answer. Colaninno took Piaggio onto the public market in mid-2006, and now trades under the ticker symbol PIAGF for trader and investor alike.

Conclusion

If you’ve never had a chance to ride a vintage Vespa scooter, put it on your bucket list to do before life gets too old. Unlike automatic scooters, there’s something about a vintage Vespa with a manual shift that brings you back in time. For a moment you get to feel the scooter the way someone did years before. And for more many restored or maintained units, that’s probably the case. Even the most common model units such as the P-series Vespas or the Sprint 150s are still 30 to 40 years old now.

You’ll feel the two-stroke cycle and the pull of the engine when it engages and the wind in your face as you ride. And for a moment, you just may feel young again, like a 15-year-old on his or her first run down the road away from mom and dad and finally for a few hours …free.