Vespa World Days: live a full experience in Tuscany starting from Pontedera

The 2024 edition of Vespa World Days takes place from 18 to 21 April and is dedicated to the "Lands of Pisa". It includes four days of itineraries to discover the villages and landscapes of the Tuscan hinterland, from Peccioli to Volterra, from Monte Pisano to under the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The aim is to allow participants from all over the world to experience a real "Tuscan Experience" in the places where the Vespa was born, in Pontedera in the spring of 1946, where the factory - which is celebrating 100 years of activity - still produces models for Europe.

But you have to know that its birth has something of a coincidence, it is due to the somewhat stubborn resourcefulness of Enrico Piaggio, who wanted to challenge himself with new ideas and projects and thought of a simple vehicle with modest management costs. Until then, anyway, Piaggio had made aircraft and the same engineer to whom young Enrico asked for the vehicle, Corradino d'Ascanio, was an aeronautical engineer!

He was reluctant to the project, but he understood that it was necessary to make a virtue of necessity to adapt the Piaggio and the factory close to Pisa to the circumstances, with little money around and even less petrol to fuel any vehicle. The aeronautical experience, in summary, proved successful and it was from this that the intuition of "wings under the feet" came, as Lunapop would sing half a century later about the Vespa 50 Special.

54 national Vespa Clubs and another 660 Vespa Clubs will meet in Pontedera, ranging from Argentina to Australia to give you an idea. A monstrous motorcycles rally with thousands of Vespa enthusiasts from every corner of the world (estimated to be 8,000!) and a wonderful area to discover, that of the Lands of Pisa, with its rolling hills, ancient villages, parks and nature reserves, the sea a stone's throw away. Always starting from the Vespa Village set up in Pontedera.

In the four days from Thursday to Sunday, Vespa enthusiasts will have the opportunity to take suggestive group trips that embrace the places of the Valdera: Peccioli for example, recently elected "village of villages 2024" and a virtuous model of environmental sustainability. Here Vespa enthusiasts will pass through the famous "Endless Sunset" walkway on the occasion of the parade and will be able to admire the view from the suspended terrace of the Timeless Palace.

Itineraries that are available to anyone and also on other dates in addition to those of Vespa World Days. In fact, Tuscany lends itself to two-wheel fans, motorcyclists and cycle amateurs, and it is here that the legendary Strade Bianche takes place on unpaved routes (but in the Lands of Siena). So a way to return to these places and riding the vehicle we prefer.

With its load-bearing body and the visual absence of the engine, the Vespa had the merit of not dirtying the driver and the passenger behind, often a girl sitting as a rider. For many generations it has embodied the freedom to move comfortably, due to sitting in an upright position and with arms not bent on the handlebars. This made it easy to drive and women also liked it. Before ergonomics entered the vocabulary, therefore, D'Ascanio invented ergonomics!

The story is well known: the first model from 1946 had a 2-stroke 98 cubic centimeter engine with 3 gears and reached 60 km per hour. Above all, it managed to overcome gradients of 20% in first gear and with one liter of petrol mixture it could cover 40 kilometres! Ideal for the cities and non only. It cost 55,000 euros (less than 2,000 euros today) and those who could chose the higher trim costing 61,000 euros. As for the 1946 engine, it didn't last long because two years later the 125 cc displacement was adopted and, moreover, Piaggio also fitted the rear suspension.

About Vespa we can quote the proverb that you can understand a winning horse at the start. A few years after his debut on the road, there was the sparkling first time on the set in the mentioned movie "Roman Holiday" by William Wyler. From there a succession of appearances, cinema, literature, pop music would have extended the myth and so the Vespa ended up in our contemporaneity.

Just think of "Luca", a 2021 animated film by Disney and Pixar and set in Italy, in the wonderful setting of the Cinque Terre in Liguria. And a special Mickey Mouse edition was also created with Disney.

Always in step with the times, Vespa is always fashionable. This is demonstrated by the Armani and Dior designer versions of the Vespa 946, while Sean Wotherspoon colored the Primavera version. And it's never out of place either! At the 1980 Paris-Dakar, the "real" ones that crossed the Sahara, two Vespa PX 200s arrived without a hitch at the finish line on the beaches of the capital of Senegal.

Today the Vespa is exhibited at the Museum of Italian Design at the Triennale in Milan and even at the Museum of Modern Art - the famous MoMa - in New York. However, there is so much to discover in Pontedera, the Piaggio Museum here is worth a visit during the Vespa World Days, but also after. In fact, the “Vespa All over the world” exhibition will be inaugurated on April 18th, which will remain open until November 16th 2024.

If a swallow doesn't make a spring, the Vespa does! With almost 20 million units produced from 1946 to today, the Piaggio group produces the Vespa in three factories: beyond Pontedera, one in India and one in Vietnam. It can be said of Vespa that it was the first truly global brand in the motor industry. But it must defend itself from the attacks of many clones produced by improvised companies and brands. As happened at the 2018 Milan Motorcycle Show (Eicma), when obvious Asian clones of the Vespa Primavera appeared on the stands.

The complaint was filed and their exhibition was blocked, but many times Piaggio had to go to court to enforce its patents and property rights. Even the European Intellectual Property Office (Euipo) has established the uniqueness of the Vespa, fining and prohibiting counterfeits, at least 50 in recent years alone.