STYLISH SIMPLICITY

“When I was growing up near Milan, Italy, scooters were everywhere.” — Gianluca Baldo, owner, Bello Moto vintage scooter center

The story goes that at the close of World War II, Italian businessman Ferdinando Innocenti looked at the ruins of his bombed-out factory and saw the future of Italian personal transportation.

Going a bit further back, Innocenti had founded a seamless steel tubing factory in 1922 and moved it to Milan in 1931. That factory, like much of Italy’s industrial base, was destroyed by the Allies during World War II. At the same time as Allied aircraft were dropping bombs over Northern Italy, other Allied planes were dropping paratroopers to secure strategic objectives against the Germans. Once they hit the ground, the paratroops needed transportation, so Cushman scooters were dropped with the paratroopers. The Cushmans, ugly but very versatile, gave Innocenti an idea of how to create inexpensive powered transport that could be used by both men and women. Of course, Innocenti’s new scooter, like anything designed in Italy, would be chic and stylish, in addition to being useful. He looked for an engineer to translate his ideas into blueprints.