Enrico Piaggio's jewel turns 80. The MP6 prototype, designed and built by aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio, was patented in Florence on April 23, 1946: a monocoque that still rages around the world. When the Giro d'Italia honored the "machine" of national rebirth, which led the pink caravan with the slogan "Fast, silent, and safe"...
There are dates that should be carved into the tiles used to create routes to elementary schools..., such as:
- 1493, the year in which the first drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci (Atlantic Codex) of a bicycle to be made of wood appears;
- 1901, the year of the first bicycle with cardan shaft drive and rod brakes assembled by Edoardo Bianchi in Via Nirone, Milan;
- 1903, the year of the first motorcycle derived from a bicycle, created by the geniuses of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Harley and Davidson;
- 1938, the year of the first Beetle designed by Ferdinand Porsche for Volkswagen;
Iron tiles could also be forged with the dates:
- 1957, the year of Dante Giacosa's first Fiat 500, a 2-cylinder engine for a total of 479 cc inside a self-supporting body;
- 1974 was the year of the VW Golf, invented by Giorgetto Giugiaro to replace the Beetle, which was now approaching its fourth birthday.
In short: there are plenty of opportunities for the past to continue to be the guiding star for the future. In other words: woe betide anyone who relies solely on artificial intelligence without occasionally stimulating memory...
It was April 23, 1946, when La Vespa was born, yes: with the definite article capitalized. Rome's founding on April 21 had been celebrated for 883 springs. April 25, the national turning point thanks to the uprising for Liberation from Nazi-Fascism, was already 12 months old. And the Italian Republic would be born the following June 2.
That April 23rd fell on a Tuesday. And Enrico Piaggio filed the Vespa patent in Florence, designed and proposed by aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio. It was the idea that was about to become a reality (and perhaps had already been put together in the workshop) of what in contemporary times we would call a load-bearing scooter. Yes: the classic cycling structure, the one exported worldwide by Harley-Davidson, for example, on the steel horse of a bicycle, became
That idea, albeit in different guises and embellished over time, is still there… and we see countless of them circulating in Malta too, and not exclusively at the hands of Italian immigrants in the heart of the Mediterranean, with Sicily to the north, Tunisia to the west, and Greece to the east.
You might say: thanks for refreshing our memories, but what does it have to do with us Italians, citizens of the world? It's spot on, indeed. The Vespa has become an icon that everyone prides themselves on. It was, still is, and always will be the symbol of the rebirth of a country that emerged broken (in every sense) from the Second World War and was desperately seeking the means and resources to return to what it had been: industrialized.
The Vespa, with its MP6 prototype, was a symbol of freedom, a desire to relaunch oneself, and freedom at a "low price," that is, affordable for workers, not just the wealthy. Much like Dante Giacosa's FIAT 500 and FIAT 600 would later become, moving from two to four wheels. The former was created to replace the Topolino, the latter to accommodate the typical Italian family: a mother, a father, and two children.
So: in 2026 La Vespa turns 80. And we try to recreate the emotions and share the sensations we experienced in 2006 when La Vespa helped us realize the mad desire to celebrate its 60th anniversary with the Giro d'Italia.
It was the 89th Giro d'Italia, the second entirely designed by me (that is, without constraints inherited from my predecessor at the helm of the organization), starting from Seraing, or Liège, in Walloon Belgium, the home of French-speaking cycling. There, we could begin the upward repositioning of an event that in the recent past had suffered from being downsized, forgetting its status as the Giro d'Italia and entering the phase of the Giro of Italians only. There, we could make people forget Marco Pantani, whose shadow still lingered over our most important race, painting it with dark brushstrokes, considering the manner in which he had passed away. There, we could honor the memory of the 262 miners who died on August 8, fifty years earlier, in the underground fire caused by boiling oil: 136 of them were Italians who ended up in the Crazier Forest as part of the Italian-Belgian exchange of laborers for coal.
And here, in Italy, it was possible to—precisely—mark the 60th anniversary of the Vespa, which traditionally led the way at the Giro d'Italia's Advertising Carousel, blaring the slogan "Fast, silent, and safe" over the loudspeakers. The same riders who led the way would, before evening, hand the participating team managers envelopes containing official press releases packed with rankings, details of the next day's stage, and any sanctions imposed by the jury or the management. The Vespa had already been removed from the Giro, replaced by three-wheeled vehicles supplied first by Gilera and then by Piaggio, with engines imported from India.
In 2006, the Giro was led by the hand to Pontedera, home of Piaggio. And the 50km individual time trial was won by German Jan Ullrich, a protagonist on the roads of the Giro after having been a protagonist on those of the Tour de France, in duels – among other things – with Panti and who ended up in trouble, albeit less than that of the Pirate found dead in a squalid room of a Rimini residence, but still serious enough to gain the help of the other protagonist of that cursed cycling: Lance Armstrong.
That Giro was won in three stages of pure competition by Ivan Basso, who also ended up in the net of anti-doping before his sporting resurrection and repeat in 2010 in pink and now in business between Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Malta with another champion of chiaroscuro: Alberto Contador.
Be that as it may.
In 2006, arriving by plane or road from Belgium, after honoring the courage of the Peschici residents who recovered from the fire of the previous summer of 2005, the Giro invaded Pontedera after the rest day—the transfer from Puglia to Tuscany. It was May 18th, a Thursday like the Vespa's sixtieth birthday. Despite being held only in the provinces of Pisa and Lucca, the entire Tuscany region came to a halt because, as we know, on certain occasions, that is the region where cycling dominates every sport, even football, with the possibility of counting on Fiorentina and a bit of Pisa and Empoli.
Gino Bartali's followers never back down, and in the spring of 2006, La Vespa – then run as a company by the Colaninnos – was on everyone's lips, and that elegant, free-spirited image reverberated once again across the globe, giving Italians the opportunity to stick out their chests.
