All projects greasy have to pause for a moment while I go on holiday, but this seems like a good excuse to sit back and reflect a little on the progress so far. And if I am going to be in the native home of the Vespa, I might get the chance to learn a little more about the scoot, and maybe even pick up some bits!
Well the first thing I notice while here on the continent is that while there are thousands of scooters on the roads, a good many of them are brands Ive never heard of and a very few of them are older vespas (and I havent seen a single Lambretta). Now when I say ‘older’, I dont mean vintage machines, I mean, it is rare to see a vespa of more than maybe 10 years. Everybody is driving modern, plastic faring, twist’n’go’s (though I have seen a few knackered old Tomos mopeds that I rather like ;-)
As part of the Kyoto agreement on global emission reduction, the Italians apparently got into a bit of a pickle a few years back as they had quite a stretching target to meet. And so some bright bureaucratic spark came up with the then brilliant, but now disastrous idea of insentivising the nation with huge subsidies to trade in thier old smokey scooters, for brand new clean ones. The rules were strict, and old traded-in machines had to be scrapped (unless broken down and sold for parts). On the one hand this had a huge and positive impact on the air quality and environmental impact of italy, but on the other hand it stuffed the italian scooter manufacturing industry (leaving the market wide open for japanese scooters) and destroyed the iconic symbol of its national identity, culture and heritage.
So no more cool and suave on a vespa or lambretta. Instead, skimpily clad nubiles and bermuda-shorted youths on suzukis, yamahas, MBKs CYMs(?) etc (though I have to admit that Piaggio and Aprilla still represents a good proportion of new scooters on the road)
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