In 2023, if you’re familiar with Vespa, chances are good that you know at least a little bit of how the company started. Post-WWII, everyday Italian people needed a convenient, affordable way to get around, so Piaggio came up with one. While the company and designer Corradino D’Ascanio certainly couldn’t have known what a style icon they were creating at the time, that’s still exactly what they did.
Necessity, in this case, was the mother of invention—but just because you need function doesn’t mean that you can’t also have a form that’s extremely appealing to the eye. Over the decades, Piaggio has taken these strengths and improved various components in keeping with the times. Its devotion to style and a certain timelessness is clear, but it’s also not afraid to modernize.
