GTS 250ie Super… and a 300?

This somehow slipped past us a couple weeks ago: Piaggio’s been showing a TS 250ie Super with black wheels and 2-tone gloss white/matte white paint. Word is, a 300cc version is also on the way. Handsome! (Thanks, Ericcalm)

3 thoughts on “GTS 250ie Super… and a 300?”

  2. Wow, a lot of vectors are intersecting here. 1) Is the 300 for real? If you read the Italian-market scooter sales numbers on Cyberscoot.it, it’s pretty obvious that Piaggio *must* respond to the Honda SH300i or get completely pushed out of their home market. For that reason alone, a GTS300 seems inevitable, but I been fooled before. 2) The fake cooling vents in the GTS300 cowl make perfect sense to me. They are a signifier, a way to distinguish the latest, greatest GTS300 from yesterday’s cheese-danish, the GTS250ie. 3) Other than a number, what does 300 cc’s mean? Is anybody else getting deja vu from the press that says the 300 will have more torque but not much more horsepower than the 250? That’s exactly the same thing Piaggio said about the 250 vs the 200 two years ago, remember? And remember when word was that shoehorning a 250 into the GT body was quite a delicate balancing act? What about a 300? How much heavier is the 300 motor/drivetrain and what will that do to the rear suspension and handling? 4) Is the GTS300 the same body again as the GT200/GTS250 or are those cowl vents a hint that there’s more to this than meets the eye? Again, is there a weight penalty associated with the 300? 5) Thinking practically, what will 300 cc’s mean for rear tire life? My GT200 tires were barely good for a 3000 mile Cannonball. How long will rear tires on a heavier, more-powerful GTS300 last? 6) If the GTS250 had so much trouble with that exhaust bearing than the 200, has Piaggio designed something that can handle the even greater compresssion of a 300 motor?

    I admit, the idea of a 300 is pretty exciting, but I gotta couple questions first…

  3. I doubt it’s displacement that is making the Hondas sell well there. I bet it has something to do with Honda-ness rather than 50ccs.

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