The Vespa at 80

I like Vespas, they're very stylish, but damn they are noisy, and not a nice rumble either but more like a very loud chainsaw. They give off a terrible amount of smoke compared more modern scooters too. I do often wonder why so few other new small motorcycles or scooters have similarly beautiful designs though.

However, for me, having lived in a country with a motorbike culture for the last decade, the coolest thing on two wheels is electric scooters. So much torque, range nearly equal to same sized gas scooters, and no pollution of the noise or smoke variety. It makes such a difference when everyone is zipping around on these quiet, non-stinking scooters. That's cool. Now it just needs someone to make an electric scooter design as iconic as a Vespa.

Reading through the comments I somehow doubt that many have owned or ridden a Vespa that was built in the last 10 years or so.

I've had a 300cc Vespa GTS for a decade now (alongside a few motorcycles) and the thing that is the most striking about it is how relaxing it is to drive. Despite being somewhat heavy, they are very manoeuvrable due to the low center of gravity. The suspension is very good and despite the roads here being awful it just glides over any bumps and smooths them out. The 300cc engine is fairly quiet and provides more torque than you need. When the lights turn green you'll be over the intersection before the motorcyclists have had time to release the clutch and get going.

It does well on the open road too. It isn't a race machine, but it'll do 120km/h (75 mph) which is good enough. And you won't feel stiff and bent when you arrive if you decide to take it on a 6 hour ride.

I didn't get it for the looks/style. Yes, I did think it was a bit of a gimmick. And then I tried it. I thought I was doing 60/kmh when I was doing 80km/h. And it just glided over bumps.

(And yes, I have a motorcycle as well, but I'm European so it means I don't ride a motorcycle to get into road rage incidents. We actually try to get along here)

The horror that was aluminium engine. You could open and close a screw only twice and goodbye threads.

Piaggio also designed a car (well, more than one including bad prototypes), which unfortunately wasn't sold in italy due to a gentleman's agreement with fiat (fiat being much bigger basically went if you start selling cars, we'll build motorcycles). The English Wikipedia doesn't include this snippet of history, the Italian page does though https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACMA_Vespa_400

I hated our Vespa when I was a kid in the seventies but their calendars were cool. You know that instinct you get when you're slowing down or coming to a stop, where you just want to stick your feet out for balance? Well, every time I did that, I felt like those sharp metal edges on the Vespa were just waiting to scrape my leg or catch my ankle. It wasn't a bike to me; it was a hazard on two wheels. So when the opportunity came to "borrow" it while my father was napping, I gladly handed the honor over to my brother. Off we went, buzzing through the dark to see the aftermath of an airstrike on an oil refinery at the edge of the city. It was pitch black out there, and before we knew it, we'd tipped right into a ditch on the side of the road. Panic was not because we were hurt, but because we were convinced our father would somehow know we'd taken his Vespa. Luckily, a few strangers happened to pass by and helped us haul the thing back up. You'd think we'd have learned our lesson, but soon after, I pulled a similar stunt, this time with our white Volkswagen.

Vespas are fashionable and cute but the coolest thing on 2 wheels award goes to Simsons of all colors and stripes (2-stroke or electric, pick your poison). In Germany, the grandfathered 2-strokes are also the only way you can legally ride somethibg faster than 45 km/h on a moped license.

There's a culture for modding Vespas in Indonesia that I think HN folks would find interesing - check out "Vespa extreme"/"Vespa gembel" - sort of like if mad-max was in the jungle culture of chopping and rebuilding old Vespas into all sorts of wild road machines. Pretty interesting kind of hippie/punk subculture.

> "The first ads for the Vespa featured a woman," said Sarra. "You could call it a kind of feminist design." Well, a big feature of the Vespa design is that, unlike other motorcycles, women (or Scottish men) can ride them with skirts. Surely that helped with their initial popularity.

Timeless iconic Italian design.

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention the role Vespa (and Lambretta) played in the British Mod scene.

You can see it's influence in the RAF roundel stickers on bikes in the article.

For anyone interested Quadrophenia is still a fun introduction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrophenia_(film)

This is a nice movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8885658/ (Enrico Piaggio - Un sogno italiano)

I will now go off topic a bit. I guess that Americans might not know about it, but Pavarotti enjoyed driving his scooter. There are photos of him in his villa driving his scooter that nowadays might make you think they're Ai generated but they're real and very Italian

https://www.inmoto.it/news/curiosita/2025/08/14-8327674/pava...

I have a Vespa PX 125 from 1984. It's a very robust motorbike, very less maintenance and really funny to drive with the gearshifter. The only problem is about brakes: there are basically useless and you should be really careful on using them, especially if you are driving on wet road. Bad brakes and small wheels is a terrible combination.

Probably the main regret to WFH is not using my Vespa anymore as I did when I was going everyday in the office.

Iconic design, but way too noisy and dirty. Article doesn't mention "electric" once.

The coolest thing if you're not behind them inhaling their exhaust fumes.

…and here I am a dumb American tourist who knew nothing about Vespa’s and was just upset because I couldn’t get my uber and missed my train.

Now I want one!

Cheryl Tunt: "Mopeds are fun, but you don't want your buddies to see you riding one."

Meh. I guess people like the style. The Honda Cub had far more impact worldwide and is a superior machine in every aspect.

Ah ah my youth! I had a Vespa with a 200cc engine, three speeds, from the 80s: this thing would do a wheelie in 1st gear. And very hard to control wheelie for the weight is uneven on a Vespa. My brother had a rare Vespa 125 cc from 1961 or something: when he left the country he sold it to a friend who still owns it.

Another friend of mine --the reason we all had Vespa back then-- could disassemble and reassemble them with his eyes closed, including the engine.

We'd go to flea markets and garage sales around the country looking for Vespa, Lambrettas and even french Solex for sale. Best find was not a Vespa though but a real Honda Monkey Z50.

One day I forgot to put oil in a Vespa and the engine just froze: cylinder expanded in the piston and rear-wheel locked in place. Somehow I didn't crash. I put oil (you typically had oil with you, in a tiny trunk), waited for the thing to cool down: it just started back up (!).

These were the days, thanks for posting that on HN.

P.S: it's really sad we cannot have nice things posted without having the majority of comments being from environmental-jihadists : (

It's the coolest thing on 2 wheels only in CBC's imaginary world.

Thanks I hate it, extremely noisy and dirty. I really wish the brand dies with fossil fuels.