What does an engineering and manufacturing company do when it loses its biggest customers in short order? That’s what happened to Italian engineers Piaggio, Innocenti and Rumi in 1945. Piaggio had been supplying military aircraft to the Italian Air Force. Innocenti was a seamless steel tube and scaffold manufacturer based in Milan suburb Lambrate. And Rumi used its aluminum foundry to build miniature submarines and torpedoes for the Italian navy.
After WWII, the demand for of the late ’40s stimulated the market for cheap, economical powered basic transportation. Piaggio used its aircraft experience to design the Vespa (English: wasp), using a 98cc 2-stroke engine, likely a starter unit from one of its heavy bombers, and designed a 2-wheeled scooter around it. The Vespa also copied design elements like the leading-link single-sided front suspension. This all fitted into a pressed steel chassis with the engine/transmission unit forming the rear single-sided swingarm suspension.
