{"id":46939,"date":"2020-09-17T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/?p=46939"},"modified":"2020-10-16T09:32:31","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T09:32:31","slug":"piaggio-vespa-400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/en\/piaggio-vespa-400\/","title":{"rendered":"Piaggio Vespa 400"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Italian company Piaggio has been in existence since 1884 and is particularly well known worldwide for scooters. However, the brand’s history began with a timber warehouse in Sestri Ponente near Genoa, where ships were built shortly afterwards. Again a few years later, the company shifted to the construction of railroad carriages and then, from 1916, to the design and construction of planes in a new factory in Pontedera. These and other armaments ensured that Piaggio was one of the most successful companies in Italy in the 1930s. However, bombing raids during the war destroyed the main factory and after the war the Allies decided that Piaggio had to stop producing weapons. Enrico Piaggio, son of company founder Rinaldo Piaggio, took over the management of the company and had a scooter developed to meet the increased mobility needs of the Italians. In 1946 the scooter was introduced as the Piaggio Vespa (Italian for wasp).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From scooter to micromobile<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While the scooter has remained in the program ever since in a similar form in ever new variations and achieved worldwide recognition, other products of the brand have remained rather unknown. A certain fame can definitely still be attested to the three-wheeled small transporter Ape (Italian for bee), which has been available since 1948. Mopeds such as the Ciao or the Bravo, the van Porter or large scooters such as the Skipper or the Hexagon are probably only known to fans of the brand. The same is true of a small car, which Piaggio developed from the mid-1950s onwards, when the needs of the population moved away from two-wheelers and towards cars. While in Germany small cars like the BMW Isetta, Z\u00fcndapp Janus, Messerschmitt KR200 and others courted buyers, there were no comparable offers in Italy at that time. The Piaggio Vespa 400 made its debut at the Paris Motor Show in 1957, having already completed a full year of testing. During the same period, however, Fiat presented the Nuova 500, whose compact basic concept combined with a low price gave Piaggio a hard time. As a result, the main market for the Vespa 400 was shifted towards Belgium and France, where there were significantly fewer competing models available. Even the production finally took place in the French factory in Fourchambault.<\/p>\n\n\n

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