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.
It sounds like you're describing a 2-stroke engine, which older Vespas did use. But modern ones use a 4-stroke engine and should have the same emissions profile as any other motorcycle.
I live next to a road and combustion-engine mopeds vary from "holy fuck this is loud" to "I can't wait to move out". I used to live close to an airport and that was much better. The specific noise that mopeds make drills into your head. Funnily, I'm never bothered by nails on chalkboard or cutlery on plate, but mopeds, holy fuck, if hell exists, it's full of mopeds.
I haven't been following the latest developments but about 10 years ago they launched "Vespa elettrica". It was very expensive and low powered at launch. Not sure if they've iterated on it since.
I suspect that other brands of electric motorbike may be better
A guy across the street from me has a new one. It's loud as hell, but this guy is the type to remove his muffler to make whatever car he has this week sound "cooler". I'm not ready to blame the scooter yet.
I'm talking about the Vespas I actually experience on a daily basis. I don't know if they're new or old, but I can assure you that they are loud and smoky.
That og elettrica has been all but cancelled in most markets. It was grossly underpowered and overpriced, which is a shame. IIRC they relaunched it as the primavera elettrica, without all the green/yellow bits, but it's still the same bike.
Switched from Vespa (combustion) to Unu (electric) and Black Tea (electric) .. and the one feature I yearn for, from the Vespa era, is its noise factor.
Electric is damn quiet, damn smooth, and damn fast. (And damn comfy.)
And that can be a problem. Especially in a city like, say, Vienna, where people just do not check before they cross some of these little cosy streets.
I became a much more alert and guarding rider when I switched from Vespa.
Maybe that's a good thing, I dunno, but I am gonna put a whistle on my helmet some day soon, I swear ..
> people just do not check before they cross some of these little cosy streets.
Yes, you're supposed to be the one checking that you don't hit pedestrians. Cities are for humans first, machines second. Drive slower. If you want to drive fast, take a road trip.
Pedestrians are *also* subject to right-of-way rules, just like everyone else on the road. Many examples of people running between parked/stopped cars and getting smoked when they hit an open lane with a vehicle they did not expect to be there.
It takes a certain kind of arrogance to assume that another person's direct experience must be wrong, and your take, based on a 14 word description of the scenario, must be right.
Two people who actually live the same experience may have different opinions on "right" and "wrong", and the law may differ from those opinions.
But man, assuming bad faith on the part of others is a hell of a way to go through life.
This is true. But unfortunately it is correct advice being given to the person who isn’t causing the problem.
It would be interesting to see what an intentionally and well designed city could look like. I’d probably have a walkable city center, no cars, and maybe scooters could be allowed but required to have some automatic wireless-controlled limiter that keeps them below 10mph or something.
i drove for a few years both a moped that makes noise (the electric angel weeping sound) and one completely silent. Not making noise made many people cross the road without watching and putting me and them both in serious danger, and i'm kinda glad i'm not driving the silent one anymore
You can check around all you want but it is not going to help if someone blindly decides to just step in front of you without looking anywhere. Pedestrians sometimes move totally randomly. This is a similar problem when riding a bicycle on a shared path. Sometimes they walk like they were alone on the path
Or honk. Does your Vespa have a honk? In Vietnam, we honk our bikes to alert others especially around a curve. Foreign visitors complain about all the honking, and they are indeed annoying sometimes, but there is a reason why people do it.
I also live in Vietnam and that's utter bs, sorry. People in Vietnam are generally chill and lovely, until they get onto the road where they become selfish, entitled, noisy assholes. They honk to avoid having to look, wait, or slow down. Trying to be a pedestrian in Vietnam is extremely stressful, nobody will ever give you right of way even on a sidewalk, instead they'll just drive directly at you while honking until you get out of the way.
The motorcycle version of that is "if cars can't here me from a mile away, then I'm not safe enough" or "broken exhausts save lives" or such, and that makes me hate those particular motorcyclists, too.
I have a couple of Vespas - a '98 T5 and a 2011 PX Unità d'Italia - and honestly my favourite safety feature is the noise they _can_ make. Modern Vespas don’t sound like the old ones from the factory anymore, but the retro scene is strong, so a lot of tuning kits bring back that classic buzz.
In town, filtering, weaving through traffic, getting to the front at lights etc., being able to make a sound which is so ubiquitously embedded in culture that it's instantly recognisable, and so easily localised, really makes a difference. It might be audible, but it's still quieter than many bigger bikes that people ride around town on, and less obnoxious. I guess I'm not the only one who feels that way, as I get a ton of smiles and so many people make an effort to move out of my way - much more so than other bikes I see on the road.
I've been super excited for electric motorbikes for years. I nearly bought a Zero FXS/FXE during covid, and then for the last year or two i've been looking hard at a BMW CE04. But they’d change how I ride, and I’d be more hesitant using them around town simply because being almost inaudible makes me nervous in UK traffic. In saying that, I'd be a lot more comfortable riding around places with a decent cycling culture like Cambridge, where people are used to looking around for smaller quieter vehicles, so I guess this too will change over time. E-bikes are great, but there the problem isn't the ride, it's the theft/security/insurance aspects.
So yeah, I guess until a few of these things change, my buzzy Vespa, with its awesome clutch and gears and crappy little drum brake on the front, will continue to be my go-to.
Solving the safety problem by making it loud does not seem like a great solution.
Fast forward and everyone is driving nearly silent electric vehicles. I wouldn’t want loud Vespas then. Cutting city noise pollution is one of the benefits of electric vehicles.
I have to agree that the amount of pollution these things put out is really a dealbreaker in modern times, in my opinion. They really smell up a street when they go by, it’s so noticeable after having mainly electric cars and bicycles going by.
I used to ride Honda CBR500R as my primary commute vehicle for a few years in Seattle. And while the rumble of the engine was not at the chainsaw-levels of annoying, it still sucked, it still emitted smoke, and I still had to wear ear protection. Which I would need to wear even on an electric motorcycle as well, to be fair, given that I took highway (and the wind noise at speeds above 60mph absolutely hurts hearing; after catching myself speaking way too loud after a ride a couple of times, I just invested into ear protection).
But even at low speeds, the engine noise was imo annoying for pedestrians. And, mind you, I ran it with a stock exhaust. I absolutely despise people who install extra-loud (illegal) aftermarket exhausts on purpose, because they know that nobody is gonna enforce it.
Electric is kinda solving all those problems. Just yesterday, I was walking outside in NYC, and an Amazon delivery van (manufactured by Rivian) was passing by. It was such a relief, because I initially saw a big van approaching and braced for noise and smoke. Beautifully enough, none of those concerns actually materialized, and it was just a fast/quiet/smokeless van.
I am not some radical pro-EV-at-all-costs person, but I would be lying if I said that EVs of all kinds don't bring tons of immediate benefits to me, even as an outside observer who doesn't currently. No noise + no smoke + lots of torque already makes the outside way nicer for passerbys. And it is way more fun for an operator of those too (I happily drove an EV car before for multiple years, until I moved to NYC and stopped driving).
This is a really weird take that does not resemble any modern Vespa. Are you sure you looked at a modern Vespa and not some old 2 stroke thing?
Also, the range is pretty good. About 160 miles on a full tank, which no electric motorcycle or scooter I've tried can match. Drive it carefully and you can extend that range to probably 180 miles. You'll be lucky to get 80-100 miles out of an electrical motorcycle.
As for torque, sure the smaller Vespas could use more torque, but the 300cc has more than you will ever need in a city. And to be frank, it doesn't do too badly on longer trips either. It is certainly more comfortable than my Ducati.
Update: As for "modern". Note that my 300cc Vespa is about 10 years old now. So it isn't all that new either.
There literally are og electric vespas, I don't think they're great value for money but I guess people like the way they look. Then again, I'd rather see more of them in the city than loud motorcycles
https://www.vespa.com/it_IT/modelli/primavera/primavera-elet...
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)
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
Piaggio also designed the Ape (bee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape a 3 wheel tiny pickup. It was hugely popular, but of course not as much as the Vespa because of the smaller market. I still see some of them especially in country areas.
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.
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
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.
And that's relevant how? If you live in a city where everyone owns a petrol scooter it's absurd. Can't wait for all of these to be electric, it's just common sense.
>>And the noise pollition I hear coming from the electric to me is a million times worse than ICEs.
Is this some kind of trolling?
>>accessible (we do not have electronic money).
And is this some kind of joke? An electric scooter can be plugged into a solar panel and recharged within a day. For free. Even if every oil refinery on earth explodes you will be able to charge your electric scooter by the wonderful power of the sun.
Unless you mean the cost to purchase - have you seen the cost of a new Vespa? You can have two electric scooters for the price of a new Vespa.
And electric scooters have long ago matched needs of city users in terms of range. Recharge time isn't as fast as petrol, sure, but people tend not to drive scooters for 500 miles in a day. You drive it to work, drive it back, plug it in. Or charge during the day using solar.
Or you know, for really crazy sci-fi ideas just look at china, where electric scooters with swappable batteries are extremely common. Even if you work as a food delivery driver you can have a fresh fully charged battery in less time than it would take you to fill up with petrol.
Yes, all of them are terrible and should have ceased to exist 10 years ago? Now is just the next best time. It won’t save the industry addicted to them of course, China has long gotten rid of them.
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 : (
> without having the majority of comments being from environmental-jihadists
Not to break your wishful thinking filled bubble, but those are very clearly not "will somebody please think about the environment" type comments. Plenty of people simply fucking despise the ever living shit out of this class of vehicle, just in general.
You really don't need to give two hot shits about the environment to find scooters obnoxiously loud smoke factories, to have a problem with that, and to be absolutely fucking over them as a result. Delivery drivers made sure of that in the past years. I'm sure it's much more convenient for you to just file it under your favorite political grift, but I assure you with confidence, the hate on these is entirely self-interested and genuine.
I hate to say it but good riddance! OK to keep as a classic icon for everything on the road but definitely not something that I would want to continue being popular.
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.
It sounds like you're describing a 2-stroke engine, which older Vespas did use. But modern ones use a 4-stroke engine and should have the same emissions profile as any other motorcycle.
I live next to a road and combustion-engine mopeds vary from "holy fuck this is loud" to "I can't wait to move out". I used to live close to an airport and that was much better. The specific noise that mopeds make drills into your head. Funnily, I'm never bothered by nails on chalkboard or cutlery on plate, but mopeds, holy fuck, if hell exists, it's full of mopeds.
[delayed]
Yes, but still terrible, pollution wise.
Electric Vespa anyone?
They did make one for a while but it's terrible. €5000 with similar specs to a €1000 bike from other companies.
They still make some models in an electric variant.
I haven't been following the latest developments but about 10 years ago they launched "Vespa elettrica". It was very expensive and low powered at launch. Not sure if they've iterated on it since.
I suspect that other brands of electric motorbike may be better
Are you thinking of older Vespas? There's a few modern ones near me and they've never struck me as overly noisy.
A guy across the street from me has a new one. It's loud as hell, but this guy is the type to remove his muffler to make whatever car he has this week sound "cooler". I'm not ready to blame the scooter yet.
I'm talking about the Vespas I actually experience on a daily basis. I don't know if they're new or old, but I can assure you that they are loud and smoky.
Yeah I have no idea what they are talking about
I have a 150 4-stroke that is fuel injected and it’s way quieter than any motorcycle and has very little exhaust smell
The older ones or modified ones.
My parents have a newer 50cc and even at full speed it doesn’t make more noise than any car.
I had an old p200e 2-stroke Vespa and it was indeed smoky and loud. And also way more fun and useful.
Vespas have been around for so long because it is such a great design. They now make an electric Vespa.
https://storeusa.vespa.com/elettrica/vespa-elettrica-45-mph....
That og elettrica has been all but cancelled in most markets. It was grossly underpowered and overpriced, which is a shame. IIRC they relaunched it as the primavera elettrica, without all the green/yellow bits, but it's still the same bike.
admittedly i have not used a vespa myself, only seen. but an e bike is a pretty good mode of motor transport.
Switched from Vespa (combustion) to Unu (electric) and Black Tea (electric) .. and the one feature I yearn for, from the Vespa era, is its noise factor.
Electric is damn quiet, damn smooth, and damn fast. (And damn comfy.)
And that can be a problem. Especially in a city like, say, Vienna, where people just do not check before they cross some of these little cosy streets.
I became a much more alert and guarding rider when I switched from Vespa.
Maybe that's a good thing, I dunno, but I am gonna put a whistle on my helmet some day soon, I swear ..
> people just do not check before they cross some of these little cosy streets.
Yes, you're supposed to be the one checking that you don't hit pedestrians. Cities are for humans first, machines second. Drive slower. If you want to drive fast, take a road trip.
What a goofy comment.
Pedestrians are *also* subject to right-of-way rules, just like everyone else on the road. Many examples of people running between parked/stopped cars and getting smoked when they hit an open lane with a vehicle they did not expect to be there.
Not the driver's fault.
It takes a certain kind of arrogance to assume that another person's direct experience must be wrong, and your take, based on a 14 word description of the scenario, must be right.
Two people who actually live the same experience may have different opinions on "right" and "wrong", and the law may differ from those opinions.
But man, assuming bad faith on the part of others is a hell of a way to go through life.
This is true. But unfortunately it is correct advice being given to the person who isn’t causing the problem.
It would be interesting to see what an intentionally and well designed city could look like. I’d probably have a walkable city center, no cars, and maybe scooters could be allowed but required to have some automatic wireless-controlled limiter that keeps them below 10mph or something.
i drove for a few years both a moped that makes noise (the electric angel weeping sound) and one completely silent. Not making noise made many people cross the road without watching and putting me and them both in serious danger, and i'm kinda glad i'm not driving the silent one anymore
You can check around all you want but it is not going to help if someone blindly decides to just step in front of you without looking anywhere. Pedestrians sometimes move totally randomly. This is a similar problem when riding a bicycle on a shared path. Sometimes they walk like they were alone on the path
Or honk. Does your Vespa have a honk? In Vietnam, we honk our bikes to alert others especially around a curve. Foreign visitors complain about all the honking, and they are indeed annoying sometimes, but there is a reason why people do it.
I also live in Vietnam and that's utter bs, sorry. People in Vietnam are generally chill and lovely, until they get onto the road where they become selfish, entitled, noisy assholes. They honk to avoid having to look, wait, or slow down. Trying to be a pedestrian in Vietnam is extremely stressful, nobody will ever give you right of way even on a sidewalk, instead they'll just drive directly at you while honking until you get out of the way.
The motorcycle version of that is "if cars can't here me from a mile away, then I'm not safe enough" or "broken exhausts save lives" or such, and that makes me hate those particular motorcyclists, too.
I have a couple of Vespas - a '98 T5 and a 2011 PX Unità d'Italia - and honestly my favourite safety feature is the noise they _can_ make. Modern Vespas don’t sound like the old ones from the factory anymore, but the retro scene is strong, so a lot of tuning kits bring back that classic buzz.
In town, filtering, weaving through traffic, getting to the front at lights etc., being able to make a sound which is so ubiquitously embedded in culture that it's instantly recognisable, and so easily localised, really makes a difference. It might be audible, but it's still quieter than many bigger bikes that people ride around town on, and less obnoxious. I guess I'm not the only one who feels that way, as I get a ton of smiles and so many people make an effort to move out of my way - much more so than other bikes I see on the road.
I've been super excited for electric motorbikes for years. I nearly bought a Zero FXS/FXE during covid, and then for the last year or two i've been looking hard at a BMW CE04. But they’d change how I ride, and I’d be more hesitant using them around town simply because being almost inaudible makes me nervous in UK traffic. In saying that, I'd be a lot more comfortable riding around places with a decent cycling culture like Cambridge, where people are used to looking around for smaller quieter vehicles, so I guess this too will change over time. E-bikes are great, but there the problem isn't the ride, it's the theft/security/insurance aspects.
So yeah, I guess until a few of these things change, my buzzy Vespa, with its awesome clutch and gears and crappy little drum brake on the front, will continue to be my go-to.
Solving the safety problem by making it loud does not seem like a great solution.
Fast forward and everyone is driving nearly silent electric vehicles. I wouldn’t want loud Vespas then. Cutting city noise pollution is one of the benefits of electric vehicles.
My brother and I restored my dad’s ‘64 Vespa 150S and the thing is extremely loud!
It is very smelly as well as it’s a two stroke engine, but I don’t mind that at all. Quite the opposite
Agree, as long as you don't use it around other people it's probably fine.
I have to agree that the amount of pollution these things put out is really a dealbreaker in modern times, in my opinion. They really smell up a street when they go by, it’s so noticeable after having mainly electric cars and bicycles going by.
The lack of noise and smoke is a big one.
I used to ride Honda CBR500R as my primary commute vehicle for a few years in Seattle. And while the rumble of the engine was not at the chainsaw-levels of annoying, it still sucked, it still emitted smoke, and I still had to wear ear protection. Which I would need to wear even on an electric motorcycle as well, to be fair, given that I took highway (and the wind noise at speeds above 60mph absolutely hurts hearing; after catching myself speaking way too loud after a ride a couple of times, I just invested into ear protection).
But even at low speeds, the engine noise was imo annoying for pedestrians. And, mind you, I ran it with a stock exhaust. I absolutely despise people who install extra-loud (illegal) aftermarket exhausts on purpose, because they know that nobody is gonna enforce it.
Electric is kinda solving all those problems. Just yesterday, I was walking outside in NYC, and an Amazon delivery van (manufactured by Rivian) was passing by. It was such a relief, because I initially saw a big van approaching and braced for noise and smoke. Beautifully enough, none of those concerns actually materialized, and it was just a fast/quiet/smokeless van.
I am not some radical pro-EV-at-all-costs person, but I would be lying if I said that EVs of all kinds don't bring tons of immediate benefits to me, even as an outside observer who doesn't currently. No noise + no smoke + lots of torque already makes the outside way nicer for passerbys. And it is way more fun for an operator of those too (I happily drove an EV car before for multiple years, until I moved to NYC and stopped driving).
This is a really weird take that does not resemble any modern Vespa. Are you sure you looked at a modern Vespa and not some old 2 stroke thing?
Also, the range is pretty good. About 160 miles on a full tank, which no electric motorcycle or scooter I've tried can match. Drive it carefully and you can extend that range to probably 180 miles. You'll be lucky to get 80-100 miles out of an electrical motorcycle.
As for torque, sure the smaller Vespas could use more torque, but the 300cc has more than you will ever need in a city. And to be frank, it doesn't do too badly on longer trips either. It is certainly more comfortable than my Ducati.
Update: As for "modern". Note that my 300cc Vespa is about 10 years old now. So it isn't all that new either.
Ive seen someone make electric retrofit kits for vespas which sounds great to me
There literally are og electric vespas, I don't think they're great value for money but I guess people like the way they look. Then again, I'd rather see more of them in the city than loud motorcycles https://www.vespa.com/it_IT/modelli/primavera/primavera-elet...
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)
I'm surprised the small diameter wheels allow for such a good ride.
The horror that was aluminium engine. You could open and close a screw only twice and goodbye threads.
The trade-off being (I'm guessing) that those threads would be pretty easy to re-tap by hand?
I think the usual move once threads are gone, is to move to a steel threaded insert (helicoil, time-sert, etc)
https://www.mcmaster.com/products/thread-repair-inserts/thre...
or go up a diameter if that's feasible.
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
Piaggio also designed the Ape (bee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape a 3 wheel tiny pickup. It was hugely popular, but of course not as much as the Vespa because of the smaller market. I still see some of them especially in country areas.
Well in italy I definitely see a lot of them although they're not assembled here anymore
The funniest version is the presidential one gifted to the president of the republic in 2008 https://www.museopiaggio.it/it/collezioni/2-piaggio/57-ape-c...
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.
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)
> "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.
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 electric range of Vespas are using the same iconic design.
Are you talking about a 1950’s Vespa or a 2026 Vespa?
A modern 300cc four stroke Vespa will use 3.3 litres of fuel per 100km and Euro 5 means noise is quiet.
As far as things go, modern scooters are great, practical, economical vehicles.
Euro5 also means >90% less exhaust fumes compared to Euro1 which was introduced 1999 iirc. The difference between a 1950 and 2026 Vespa must be huge.
Great to know. It seems like most of the ones in notice in the are an older vintage and/or poorly maintained.
Even the new ones are awfully loud.
But, yeah, they don't smell like the old ones thankfully
> A modern 300cc four stroke Vespa will use 3.3 litres of fuel per 100km
Uh, I know motorcycle engines aren't particularly fuel-efficient (it's not a priority), but there seems to be, er, room for improvement.
you can get some 125cc motorcycle/scooter and run on half that
Taylor Swift just used how many tons to get married?
And that's relevant how? If you live in a city where everyone owns a petrol scooter it's absurd. Can't wait for all of these to be electric, it's just common sense.
my 2022 vespa gets over 65mpg and I don’t need to move 2,000 lbs of metal to get around. I assure you it is better for the world than driving an car.
...have I suggested otherwise?
When electric will be equally practical (recharge time, mileage) and accessible (we do not have electronic money).
And the noise pollition I hear coming from the electric to me is a million times worse than ICEs.
What noise pollution do you hear from electric? You mean the noise cars make when they are backing up or what?
Whether stinky bait, or just bad sarcasm, you’ll need to up your game, this is weak.
> the noise pollition I hear coming from the electric to me is a million times worse than ICEs.
What are you talking about? The electric ones are significantly quieter.
Electronic money? Electric vehicles are cheaper to operate long term.
>>And the noise pollition I hear coming from the electric to me is a million times worse than ICEs.
Is this some kind of trolling?
>>accessible (we do not have electronic money).
And is this some kind of joke? An electric scooter can be plugged into a solar panel and recharged within a day. For free. Even if every oil refinery on earth explodes you will be able to charge your electric scooter by the wonderful power of the sun.
Unless you mean the cost to purchase - have you seen the cost of a new Vespa? You can have two electric scooters for the price of a new Vespa.
And electric scooters have long ago matched needs of city users in terms of range. Recharge time isn't as fast as petrol, sure, but people tend not to drive scooters for 500 miles in a day. You drive it to work, drive it back, plug it in. Or charge during the day using solar.
Or you know, for really crazy sci-fi ideas just look at china, where electric scooters with swappable batteries are extremely common. Even if you work as a food delivery driver you can have a fresh fully charged battery in less time than it would take you to fill up with petrol.
Maybe because not everyone cares, while the planet gets destroyed with wars, private jets and AI centers?
Noise pollution is a different issue than "saving the planet".
That is only an issue when driving 50cc and applies to all of them, regardless of which kind of motorbike.
Or those that love "tuning" taking the noise filters out of the escapes.
Yes, all of them are terrible and should have ceased to exist 10 years ago? Now is just the next best time. It won’t save the industry addicted to them of course, China has long gotten rid of them.
Well, everything is doable when following the same kind of government based "education".
Also lets ignore drilling the planet for rare minerals in the process, that China owns.
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."
Unless you're in UK.
https://lambrettauk.co.uk/post/rockers-vs-mods-a-short-histo...
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 : (
I had a 50cc and also could do wheelies. I loved my Vespa, it was always ready for whatever I wanted to do. Sometimes 45kmh, in a warm day even 55.
> without having the majority of comments being from environmental-jihadists
Not to break your wishful thinking filled bubble, but those are very clearly not "will somebody please think about the environment" type comments. Plenty of people simply fucking despise the ever living shit out of this class of vehicle, just in general.
You really don't need to give two hot shits about the environment to find scooters obnoxiously loud smoke factories, to have a problem with that, and to be absolutely fucking over them as a result. Delivery drivers made sure of that in the past years. I'm sure it's much more convenient for you to just file it under your favorite political grift, but I assure you with confidence, the hate on these is entirely self-interested and genuine.
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.
Thankfully all this stuff has been or is being killed by ebikes and escooters which are vastly better technology.
I hate to say it but good riddance! OK to keep as a classic icon for everything on the road but definitely not something that I would want to continue being popular.
Keep the body shell, modernize the internals. I think they have already done so...
There has been an electric vespa for quita a while: https://storeusa.vespa.com/elettrica/vespa-elettrica-45-mph....
At least in italy there's also a cheaper, not Vespa looking, ev piaggio, the piaggio one
modern vespas are none of those things.