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There are certain scenes that spring to mind when thinking of Italy. The Colosseum in Rome, the gondolas on the canals of Venice, and narrow roads filled with Vespa scooters. Enrico Piaggio was the principal of the Piaggio aircraft company, founded by his father and based in a factory in Pontedera, Tuscany. At the end […]

In 1931, the Italian Industrialist, Ferdinando Innocenti founded a successful engineering company most well-known for producing scaffolding and other steel pipes and joints. Just after the war he saw the potential for an economical means of transport and created the Lambretta, so called because its factory was in Lambrate, an eastern suburb of Milan. Unlike

At the conclusion of WWII Japan’s Nakajima Aircraft Co. was reborn as Fuji Heavy Industries, to manufacture civilian vehicles. They were responsible for the Rabbit S-1, Japan’s first motor scooter. The S-1 its debut in June 1946—some months ahead of the Italian Vespa. The Rabbit was based on the American Powell Streamliner scooter, examples of

When the Elite 250 was introduced, it was the largest scooter for the American market as, previously, the largest scooters available in the US were the Lambretta X200 (1966) and the Vespa Rally 200 / P200E. The Elite 250 used a vertical, liquid cooled motor which it shared with the Honda Helix (’86 – 2007),