Myself, I
blame Mussolini.
You see, you could argue that if he hadn't got
Italy involved in World War II, the country wouldn't have ended
up in such a mess in 1945. It's industry had been razed to the ground,
there was massive social disruption, transportation had been pushed
back into the medieval era and commercially the country was near
enough bankrupt. There was an urgent need to get everything moving
again.
 Along
came Piaggio, one of the country's major industrial and munitions
companies. They'd been almost bombed out of existence during the
war, and needed a project to get production rolling again. At the
same time the whole country was in desperate need of low-cost transport
so that it could get mobile again and get back to work. Starting
out with a small motorcycle that the company had originally made
for Italian parachutists, Enrico Piaggio came up with the prototype
of the first scooter; but he didn't like it and asked Corradino
D'Ascanio to redesign it. This was a bit of a strange choice as
D'Ascanio was an aeronautical engineer and didn't like motorcycles.
He thought they were uncomfortable and bulky, with wheels that were
difficult to change when you got a puncture - a fairly common occurrence
at the time on Italy's poorly surfaced roads. He got rid of the
chain by using a stress-bearing body and direct drive and made tyre
changing easier and cleaner by using an aircraft undercarriage-type
single-sided arm instead of a fork. To make it easier to ride, he
put the gearchange on the handlebars, and then used bodywork that
would give a degree of weather protection to the rider. When the
re-designed prototype, with it's narrow body and bulbous rear, was
shown to the boss of the Piaggio, he thought it looked like a wasp
[Ita = Vespa] and so the first scooter got its name. Production
of the first 2,000 units powered by a 98cc 2-stroke engine developing
3.5hp at 4,500 rpm got under way in 1946, and the 3-speed machine
could reach a speed of 60 kph. The following year Innocenti, who'd
been working along similar lines, bought out the Lambretta. Both
vehicles were an immediate success and by the mid-Fifties over a
million scooters had rolled off the production lines.
 Mainland
Europe was quick to pick up on the practicality of the scooter,
but it didn't really start to catch on in the UK until the Sixties
when it became the icon of the Mod culture. Parkas, rabbit's feet
on whip antennas, chrome bars, and enough lights to be visible from
the moon were the order of the day, as were clouds of 2-stroke fumes
and the sweet smell of Castrol-R. Unfortunately, the culture also
acquired a reputation for weekend beach fights against the Rockers
on motorbikes, mob rule and general social disorder, factors which
were not likely to sway the general British public into the merits
of using a scooter. But in spite of all this general two-wheeled
mayhem that gave the papers of the time an awful lot to write about
on holiday weekends, one bike manufacturer still thought that "You
meet the nicest people on a Honda".
Things got quieter as the Seventies wore on, maybe
because of the then recently introduced helmet laws, and from a
social perspective scooters just seemed to fade away. The Lambretta
had ceased production some years previously although the Vespa was
still going strong with new model introductions and engines sizes
increased to 200cc. In the Eighties the engineering took another
step forward with the introduction of automatic transmission, and
Honda entered the fray with its Spree model. However, changes to
the "leaner laws" and the general economic climate of
the times were not doing any great favours to either bikes or scooters,
and getting around on any form of two-wheeled transport wasn't really
the done thing.
 However, the Nineties bought with it
a new interest in scooters, and this time for all the right reasons.
The 50cc scooter with automatic transmission was the new way to
get through the traffic congestion that was clogging the urban environment.
It was quick, it was cheap, but most of all it was fun; and if it
was good enough for celebrities and Pop Stars to buy them and use
them, then it was certainly good enough for the buying public, and
especially the younger sector. All of a sudden scooters were funky
and cool, colour and design was everything, and street-cred was
all about the two wheels you rode. Success breeds, and pretty soon
a whole lot of manufacturers that we'd never really heard of along
with usual suspects, were producing scooters and selling them in
the UK. The result was a sales boom that took scooters to the top
of the bike lists, pushing even the venerable CBR600 down into second
place.
 But
that wasn't the end of the story.
If we'd got to the stage when to ride a scooter
was socially acceptable, then why should you have to be stuck with
50 or 125cc? The technology and engineering was now available to
make machines that had all the advantages of the scooter concept
but with the performance of a motorbike.
However, some of the first generation "Super
Scooters" weren't too successful, and stability and handling
were sometimes a little suspect. Whilst the weight of a 50cc 2-stroke
engine attached to the swing arm isn't going to affect the dynamics
of the rear suspension too much, the same can't be said of a 250
or 400cc 4-stroke. Weight distribution was also a problem that was
made worse when carrying a pillion, to the extent that in some cases
using the front brake had little effect on forward progress!
It's often been said that you can't keep a good idea down, and it didn't take
long to get these problems sorted. Changes to suspension geometry
and wheel sizes, moving the engine forward and onto the main chassis
all had the desired effect, and we now have a range a scooters that
can commute, do the ton two-up, and can even be used for touring
holidays. Seats that rise on gas struts to reveal carpeted and illuminated
storage areas are standard features, some models even have integrated
top boxes and heated hand grips, and you've simply got to have somewhere
to plug in the charger for your mobile phone.
 So
what's next? Well, if I knew the answer to that then I wouldn't
be writing this. I'd be out there selling the idea to a manufacturer
and making a lot of money in the process. But I think it's fair
to say that we haven't seen the end of scooter development yet,
not by a long way. With public acceptability firmly in the bag,
manufacturers aren't going to stop production and working on new
ideas for scooters in the foreseeable future, although increasingly
stringent environmental regulations may see the end of the small
2-stroke engine. However, Aprilia have already got a Di-Tech powered
scooter in production, using an air-assisted direct injection 2-stroke
that exceeds all the Euro emission laws. Peugeot are using compressed
air in a slightly different way and their supercharged 125cc Jetforce
looks like it could be just about the coolest "twist 'n' go"
scooter on the planet this year.
And what
about the rumours of a Yamaha R6 engine bolted to an automatic
transmission package? Beat that from the lights if you can!
So whatever happens to scooters in the next few
years, it looks like there's exciting times ahead, and if you haven't
tried the "twist 'n' go" experience yet then give your
left (or right) foot a rest and have a go. I think you'll be pleasantly
surprised.
|
