Having to prove a point

Any vehicle manufacturer will always highlight the finer points of their designs to prove how durable and versatile they are, the accepted industry standard, and it goes a long way in helping to sell their product. When the scooter design first hit the high street in the late 1940s it was often ridiculed, mostly by other motorcycle manufacturers. None of them saw scooters as a threat, such was their dominance, and even when sales began to pick up it was labelled as a fad.

The problem was, though, this so-called ‘fad’ didn’t die out, and sales of both the Lambretta and Vespa began to surge. Realising that the scooter wasn’t going away, negative press ensued in a deliberate attempt to put people off buying them. Innocenti, the manufacturer of the Lambretta, didn’t take lightly to the approach and decided to respond in their own unique way. Similarly, Piaggio would do the same with the Vespa. This would