[Car Home Motorcycle] Friends who don’t know much about motorcycles may know that the Vespa scooter, which is popular with the movie "Roman Holiday", and the Vespa with its own halo, make urban men and women want to stop, and some have been opposed to motorcycles. The crowd will also change their attitude and fall in love with "her". But this article is about the Piaggio motorcycles of Vespa's parent company. If you are unfamiliar, just look at the logo on the front of Vespa.
★ Piaggio origin and development
Let’s get to know Piaggio first, it is an Italian manufacturing company founded in 1884, and it was originally produced Locomotive and carriages. At the end of the First World War, Piaggio turned to the military field, producing submarines, airplanes (including seaplanes) and military cars. In the 1930s, the production of aircraft became Piaggio's main business and created 21 world records in related industries, the most representative being Piaggio's four-engine heavy bomber.
In the 1940s, Piaggio's business continued to expand to the production of trains, navigation equipment, trucks, buses and even cable cars. Unfortunately, the factory was blown up by the Allied forces during World War II. After the war, Piaggio, who resumed production, may have been affected by the war and decided to expand the company's business. They believed that they wanted to produce civilian products closer to the Italians. The first attempt was a scooter named "Donald Duck". The name is derived from the appearance of the vehicle that resembles a duck. The internal name of this prototype is called MP5 (Moat Piaggio No.5).
The head of the company (the son of Piaggio founder) was not satisfied with this Donald Duck MP5, and asked the aviation designer to recreate it. The appearance of the vehicle should be simple and both men and women can drive. , It can carry people, and there are many requirements for the driver to be decent. Finally, the designer connected the gearbox directly with the rear wheels to drive, eliminating the transmission part. The car body comparison "Donald Duck" has been simplified a lot, and optimized for the metal plaque that has a load-bearing effect... When the owner saw the redesigned MP6, he shouted "Looks like a wasp!" , The word “Vespa” in Italian has become a branch brand of Piaggio.
Beginning in the 1940s, Piaggio almost gave up on aviation projects and began to concentrate on the development of Vespa motorcycles. They registered a patent covering an integrated body and used high-efficiency assembly line production technology. Since its debut at the Milan Motor Show in 1946, Vespa's annual sales have gradually increased. In 1950, Vespa sold 60,000 vehicles in Italy. After the film "Roman Holiday" was released in 1953, it caused a sensation throughout Europe. Everyone became obsessed with the Vespa in the film, so that the sales of Vespa motorcycles exceeded 100,000.
Vespa is rapidly emerging in Europe, and Piaggio’s parent company has been promoting the development of the motorcycle business. In 1948, Piaggio relied on the Vespa scooter to build a tricycle called Ape Monkey. At first, he produced a pickup version and later added a van version. The purpose is to make it easier for street operators to do business in small Italian cities. Please pay attention to whether Piaggio’s monkey tricycle is very similar to the green three-wheelers that appeared on the streets of China in the 1980s and 1990s.
After the 1950s, Piaggio was acquired by Fiat Automobile Company. In 1964, Piaggio Aviation's railway business was completely separated from the scooter business. In 1969, Piaggio acquired Gilera motorcycle manufacturer with a long history in Europe. In 1990, Piaggio's first plastic body scooter Sfera came out. In 1994, Piaggio launched the Hexagon large-size scooter. In 1999, Piaggio opened the first Vespa boutique in Los Angeles, USA. In 2004, Piaggio signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Zongshen Group; in the same year, it acquired Apulia and Moto Guzzi.
In this way, Piaggio’s most important motorcycle brand must be Vespa, yes, but the parent company Piaggio itself does not seem to be developing step by step like regular car companies. . It wasn't until 2000 that Piaggio stabilized the development and production of scooters. In 2001, the Beverly scooter with large wheels was launched. In 2006, Piaggio MP3 inverted three-wheeled motorcycle came out.
Let’s take a look at the Piaggio Liberty light scooter. This car was launched in 1997. The vehicle has four powers of 50cc, 125cc, 150cc, and 200cc, and these engines also They are all air-cooled machines on different Vespa models, including two-stroke and four-stroke. In addition to the people choosing Piaggio Liberty for daily transportation, this car has also become a popular model for European postmen.
However, compared with the sub-brand Vespa, Piaggio's product line is far from rich, but the mission of each Piaggio motorcycle seems to be more important. After Piaggio launched the Liberty light scooter, Beverly with a larger displacement and larger body was launched. It was only 7 years later that Piaggio enriched its product line again, and a 150-class scooter named Medley was launched.
★Feel the Hyundai Piaggio Scooter
Piaggio Medley is a product between the light car Liberty and the medium and large pedal Beverly, which means that the goal should be The best-selling model in the Piaggio brand. Medley's exterior design is more avant-garde than the previous two. It continues the design of large-size rims. The reason is that many old European cities have left not so flat green brick floors. However, this bigfoot design does not look very coordinated for us, but this is Piaggio's style.
Although Medley is a scooter, it can still be seen from the appearance that it has a strong Italian design. If you think that this car is quite different from Japanese or Taiwanese scooters, and such a European appearance cannot be easily accepted, imagine that if you change into a suit or relatively formal jeans and shirts to ride this car, I believe it must be It is more harmonious than a T-shirt with shorts. This is Italian design.
The 2020 Medley is a new model that has just been introduced in China. It is not a new generation product. Only some details have changed. It can be seen that the Italians are still relatively conservative. The biggest change of the whole car is to replace the pointer instrument with an LCD electronic watch. As a scooter, although there are not so many configurations, the electronic instrument content is displayed in a larger font, and the content arrangement is simple and clear. In addition, LED headlights can be counted as a modern standard configuration.
Different from straddling a motorcycle, convenience is the biggest feature of a scooter. Piaggio is conservative in this aspect with a certain practicality, such as the pedal position design, usually Japanese pedals will make this position larger, and you can put your feet on the slope. Looking at Medley again, the Italians will never allow drivers to show a free and undisciplined driving posture in the car, which is very conservative. In terms of practicality, open the saddle and put down two full helmets of normal size.
In terms of power, the domestically introduced Medley is equipped with a 155cc water-cooled engine with a maximum power of 11 kilowatts and a peak torque of 14.4 Nm. It ranks among the best in its class. Different from the current Vespa150cc and 300cc air-cooled engines, the Medley150 water-cooled engine operates more smoothly and has less jitter. It can be said that Vespa has a strong heritage and is relatively conservative, but Piaggio’s main brand has taken care of more practicality.
In terms of riding experience, I am looking forLet the two female scooter owners talk to Medley. One is Xiaodan, owner of Peugeot Jiang Ge, and the other is Li Jie, owner of Vespa GTS 300. See how they feel about Medley. After all, girls are more careful, and they are often different from boys in expressing car feeling.
Xiaodan is a petite girl. In fact, Jiang Ge is already a larger scooter for her, but the advantage is that the center of gravity of the vehicle is low, which makes Xiaodan drive stress-free. However, before I handed Medley to her, I repeatedly warned that 790mm seat height is considered a big man in a scooter, and asked her to pay attention to this.
After Xiaodan has been riding for tens of kilometers, her first reaction is that Medley is very easy to ride, the vehicle shake is much smaller than Jiang Ge, the car is also very quiet, and her dynamic performance makes her dare not A lot of gas pedals try to speed up. In addition, she obviously feels that the traffic is very good and the road bumps are relatively less. However, there are also aspects that she doesn't like or are not used to. Medley's wheels are sitting in a big posture, which leads to a high center of gravity of the vehicle. Xiaodan, who was accustomed to riding a low-center scooter, drove Medley in awe when cornering. Later I told her that the design with a relatively high center of gravity in a motorcycle will make the vehicle more flexible.
Next, Li Jie, the owner of Vespa, should be considered a downgraded test drive. Her own scooter is higher than Medley in terms of displacement and brand. And Li Jie, who is about 1.75 meters tall, has a certain demand for the space performance of the scooter, otherwise she would not choose a 300-class scooter. In addition, her age and mileage are much larger than Xiaodan.
After the test drive Medley, Li Jie said that the pulse ignition and start-stop functions are very good, mainly for convenience. When waiting for the traffic signal, the car will be automatically turned off, and the engine will react quickly after releasing the accelerator. Get rid of most cars and start. Secondly, she believes that Medley is more comfortable to ride than her Vespa 300, brisk and non-vibrating, but in the end, she feels that most people buy motorcycles for the sake of appearance and the rate of return. Medley has no choice in all aspects, but the design is the key factor that makes her unable to choose.
Summary:
Military aviation companies give Piaggio a unique advantage in mechanical manufacturing. Moreover, it is one of the first European manufacturers to produce scooters. After successfully building the Vespa brand, Piaggio earnestly manufactured every car of the parent brand. As the flagship model of the brand, Medley has won market recognition for its excellent handling, power performance and workmanship, but the relatively pure European design has lowered Medley's domestic development achievements. (Photo/Text Car Home Zhu Xuran, assisted in shooting: Wang Meng, Li Jie, Zhang Xiaodan)
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