Ian Connely is an amateur Vespa mechanic living in San Francisco.

These articles appeared in Green Magazine and at www.GreenMagazine.com in January, 2000. Of the many articles I've seen, Ian's series was the only to consider the impact of Piaggio's return on the shops and enthusiasts that supported the American scooter scene through the eighties and nineties. Cheers to Ian for looking past the Piaggio hype machine and digging for the real story. Plus, he got Gene Merideth to say mean things. But that's in Part 2.

Ian's story is reprinted here courtesy of Green Magazine. Green was started as a 'zine by Ken Kurson, a former Chicagoan (and scooterist, and former member of the band Green) who went to New York in the early nineties to start up a magazine for GenXers leery of investing. Ken is now a well-respected financial expert and the stock market is booming. Coincidence?

For the first time in more than ten years, brand-new Vespa scooters will be available—and legal—in the U.S. For enthusiasts, it's big news. But will Vespa zip by the loyalists in its efforts to re-make the brand in the mold of populist makes like Harley-Davidson?

Maybe you remember Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck whizzing around on one in Roman Holiday, or Sting's GS flying off a cliff in slow motion at the end of Quadrophenia. The Vespa scooter, for years a beloved staple of stylish transportation in movies and a recent inclusion in the Guggenheim's 1998 motorcycle show, hasn't been available new on American shores for almost fifteen years. But with recent technological advances and a recent buyout of parent company Piaggio, new Vespas are almost ready to roll on the streets of a city near you.

The Vespa was born out of the rubble of post-World-War-II Italy, where former airplane and anti-submarine boat manufacturer Enrico Piaggio was hoping to rebuild
his eponymous company's future around a small, stylish, cheap, two-wheeled form of transportation for the masses. Called the "Vespa" (which means wasp in Italian, a particularly genius stroke of naming that describes both the curvy look and buzzing sound of the scooter), its unique styling, easy-to-drive engineering, and fuel economy made it an enormous hit across the world. Piaggio's Vespa operation grew and grew, and huge rallies of scooter enthusiasts were regular occurrences throughout Europe—and particularly in the U.K—uniting mom 'n' pop riders with Mod-ed out pretty boys. Particularly devoted riders even brought Vespas across the English Channel for rallies or, in at least one case, from Melbourne, Australia to Capetown, South Africa.

In the U.S., the scooter boom's apex was in the Eighties, when the identically-clad New Wave band Devo or wannabe glam-rocker Adam Ant could be seen shilling for Honda scooters on TV. While Honda's plastic Elite series was durable and inexpensive, an all-steel Vespa was the right choice for the cognoscenti who sought to emulate a fashionable, European lifestyle.

Eventually, tough Environmental Protection Agency emissions restrictions pushed Piaggio out of the States; the smoggy, carbureted two-stroke engines that powered Vespas weren't cost-effective to re-tune to the clean-air legislation of the day, and Piaggio all but abandoned its dealerships in the mid-Eighties. Brand-new Vespas were still available up until about 1987, but since then a hardcore contingent of aficionados has thrived almost out of sight—mostly by swapping scooters with each other and combing suburban garage sales and newspaper classifieds for rideable or restorable scooters. A small network of about a dozen shops catering specifically to Vespa owners has grown up across the country, and scooterists lucky enough to live in L.A. or San Francisco often have at least two shops in easy driving range to chose
from. Piaggio currently estimates that there are 30,000 Vespas still on the road in the U.S., and over 40 clubs devoted to the scooter.

In Europe, 50 years and 15 million scooters later, Piaggio was running out of steam. Having finally been brought back to profitability in 1998 after years of decline, the $1 billion company had nonetheless ceded a huge portion of its scooter market share to upstart manufacturers Italjet and Aprilia. The company was further shaken by the death of its two main shareholders, both members of Italy's Agnelli family, one of the country's leading industrial dynasties.

Enter a savior: Earlier this year, a bidding war between several suitors—including GE Capital and the Italian industrial families Pirelli and Benetton—for the manufacturer seemed to end in an August announcement that U.S.-based leveraged buy out house, Texas Pacific Group, would take a 75% stake in Piaggio. Texas Pacific, known in the acronym-happy buyout world as TPG, is perhaps best-known for its founder David Bonderman—whose high-profile turnaround of Continental Airlines is legend in the LBO world—and for the group's recent revamping of Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati.

Not surprisingly, the announcement went over with a giant thump, and there was much hand-wringing in the Italian press about the loss of a beloved icon to a slash-and-burn American concern. But, agreements notwithstanding, by the time the dust settled in December Piaggio had been snapped up by Euro-giant Deutsche Bank AG's Morgan Grenfell Private Equity group (MGPE), which took an 81.5% stake in the company, which is valued at $720 million, leaving Texas Pacific with only an 8.5% pittance. The remaining 10% stake stayed with the Agnelli family, who also own Fiat.

TPG declined comment for this article. (A spokesman for the firm—which currently
is investing a fund worth some $2.5 billion—dodged inquiries, noting, "We weren't the lead," on the deal.) But TPG's recent success in spinning Italy's Ducati Motorcycles into a public company with a $4.4 billion market cap and about $300 million in annual sales hints at what they and MGPE might be hoping to do with Piaggio.

While Ducati was known primarily among sport-bike enthusiasts for its superior engineering and slew of winning teams on the Nineties European Superbike motorcycle circuit, the recent revival traded on that niche cachet to make the brand more accessible. Ducati worked to create touring cycles in addition to their line of high-testosterone sport bikes, and even developed a line of Ducati clothing in partnership with designer Donna Karan.

With two new EPA-friendly, four-stroke models and a fuel-injected two-stroke, Vespa is ready to try again in America. Giancarlo Frantappie has come from Italy to spearhead the effort, assisted by veteran marketing consultant Peter Laitmon (whose
background includes founding the Sbarro restaurant chain, ad agency stints at J. Walter Thompson and Grey Advertising, and pioneering the marketing of automotive aftermarket wax and polish products). But for the moment it's essentially a two-person outfit.

Laitmon and Frantappie have been hurriedly wading through hundreds of emails and traveling coast-to-coast trying to select dealers who can sell the new Vespas— modified versions of the European ET2 and ET4 models—which Piaggio USA's Web site promises the first models Americans will see by late summer. [ha ha Ha HA HA —ed.] The least expensive of the scooters will be priced at about $2,750, with the more expensive model closer to $4,000.

Seven markets will be included in the initial push: Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Florida, and the Hamptons in Long Island. While Seattle and Chicago's inclement winter climates make them less-than-ideal spots to ride a scooter in January, Laitmon admits that it was just a matter of finding enthusiastic dealers in the less temperate markets. Piaggio also plans to auction off spots in line to buy a new Vespa on eBay.com, as auto manufacturer BMW did in 1999, to great fanfare.

Next: Part 2 of the Vespa story, as hordes of US loyalists raise hopes, and in some cases eyebrows, over Piaggio's rebirth and attempts to re-market itself domestically.

Click here to see the original version of this story on Green Magazine's website