Let’s start at the beginning of this tale.
The Vespa smallframe was the last Vespa designed by the hand of ingegnere Corradino D’Ascanio, whose vision and forward thinking created the original Vespa scooter, the little tin shopping trolley; he unintentionally created a worldwide cult that has so far lasted for more than seven decades.
It was 1963 when the smallframe Vespa was launched and became a model that would continue in production by the Italians in various versions until the late 1990s. It’s a model that’s firmly embedded within the psyche of the British scootering adolescent, as the small-capacity smallframe was usually the first stepping stone to bigger and (presumably) better things.
I wonder, when this little version of the very popular and somewhat larger Vespa model was released, if anyone could imagine that in 2023 these pocket rockets would be hitting such astronomical heights of speed and handling.
But we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, so, let’s get back to 1964…
1964 ITALY, BRISTOL & BERKSHIRE
This particular machine was made in Italy at Piaggio’s Pontedera factory in Tuscany, not far from Pisa and the port town of Livorno, on the north-west coast. It was
