Remember the rumors that Piaggio would display a new 850cc scooter at EICMA? Remember we asked why Piaggio and Aprilia called the V-Twin 839.3 engine an “850” while Gilera called it an “800?” Well, this appears to be the scooter in question, and it’s not Piaggio-branded after all, instead, it’s a nicely revamped Gilera GP800, and they upgraded the displacement to 850cc without changing the engine one bit. At least they’re consistent now.
Category: Piaggio
It’s almost a car
Auto Week is doing a long-term test of the Piaggio MP3 500 (aka Gilera Fuoco). 2sb’s first long-term test is starting soon, stay tuned!
Piaggio GT 850?
Speaking of EICMA, Piaggio is expected to show the Piaggio GT 850. Crazy. Apparently it’s based on Piaggio’s 839.3 cc V-twin automatic engine, though we’re still not clear why Gilera calls it an “800” (GP800) and Piaggio (GT 850) and Aprilia (Mana 850) call it “850.”
2SB helicopter news
78 years ago today, the first Italian helicopter, looking like a sketch from DaVinci’s notebook, broke the last of three current helicopter flight records. How does that relate to us? That primitive chopper was designed by Corradino D’Ascanio, who joined Piaggio two years later, and went on to design the world’s most famous and innovative motorscooter.
Piaggio Aero lives on, though it was divided from Piaggio & Co. in 1964. Just last week, Tata Motors of India acquired a one-third share of the company from the Ferrari/Di Mase families and Mubadala Development Co.
Vespa, Piaggio rentals at EagleRider
International motorcycle rental chain EagleRider is adding Vespa and Piaggio scooters to its rental lineup in Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles, and San Francisco this month. Just a press release rehash, but good to know (and good for PiaggioUSA sales figures, we bet).
PiaggioUSA 2008 Fall Dealer Meeting
From our spies at Piaggio’s fall dealer meeting:
Dinner meeting features Jay Leno: 45 minutes of stand up, closing with “when Piaggio called me they said, ‘we don’t have much money,’ and I said ‘I’ll do it free, I’m Italian, I want to support an Italian product, I like Italian bikes,’ then I get here and find out how your sales are up and your dealers aren’t exactly hurtin’.
Piaggio integrates Moto Guzzi operations
Piaggio announced today that they’ll be incorporating the operations of wholly-owned subsidary Moto Guzzi into Piaggio’s infrastructure by the end of November, moving Guzzi production to Piaggio or Aprilia facilities, and “rationalising the technical, industrial, design and style operations of the two companies.”
Colaninno withdraws Alitalia bid
Piaggio chairman Roberto Colaninno and his group of investors have withdrawn their bid for Alitalia, after failing to gain support from the airline’s unions.
The birth of a PiaggioUSA PR blitz
PiaggioUSA is awesome, according to a story written by a PR guy who’s written other stories about Piaggio for several PR magazines. This story will be be re-written (with a few token quotes from the local Vespa dealer) and published as “news” by all major news outlets in the next week or so.
Colaninno to helm Alitalia
Piaggio SpA chairman Roberto Colaninno, will head a new privatized Alitalia, and the weird Italian business cycle of salvation, success, abandonment, failure, government intervention, more failure, more government intervention and more salvation begins anew. Since Piaggio went public, press announcements from Pontadera have slowed considerably, this new pet project will likely divert even more of Colaninno’s attention away from Piaggio.
Pretty Fly for a college guy
Piaggio USA is targeting college-bound students with the Piaggio Fly, a $50 gas card and a free topbox. When I went to college, a burrito was a luxury item.
PGO using Piaggio engines?
Does this PGO dune buggy really have a Piaggio engine? Interesting.
AGI on U.S. Boom and Piaggio/Vespa hybrids
I’ve long stopped linking to most stories about the scooter “boom,” gas savings, and supply shortage, every small-town paper in America has covered it to death already, but now we’re making news overseas. Italian news agency AGI posted their story today, with some details about Piaggio’s sales (up over 100% in May!), their plans for U.S. hybrid models, and some glaring errors about U.S. motorcycling laws.
Smart Money, it isn’t.
Oh, we were wrong about the Buddy, it sucks. So says America’s Scooter Authority, Smart Money. In other Smart Money news, the Honda Accord sucks when you compare it to a Land Rover, a Porsche Cayenne, an Audi A6, and a Unimog.
Aussies: goodbye PX, hello $10K MP3
The Courier-Mail in Australia reports Piaggio has shipped their last containerload of Vespa PX scooters to Australia. We reported that Vespa PX production effectively ended in December, 2006, though the U.S. received 2007 models (likely manufactured in 2006) and a 30th-anniversary limited edition of 1000 white PXes was released last October in Europe. It’s unclear whether the anniversary and Aussie-market PXes were leftover stock from the 2006 batch, or a later production run.
Also from that story: after a recent AU$1000 price drop, the price of an MP3 250 in Australia is close to US$10,000. I’ll never complain about U.S. scooter prices again.