Vespa: Fuel Injected Chic

Besides just being the cutest means of transportation on the Planet Earth, the Vespa Piaggio is now planning to introduce fuel-injection technology across its entire model range in the near future. Currently, the Vespa scooters get an old-school carburetor. With a carburator a Vespa (depending on the size of the engine) should get between 60 and 90 miles per gallon! With fuel injection, it can only get better. And depending on the model, you can go Slow Italy style at a top speed of 40 mph, or if you're more the Ferrari type, up to 80 mph on the larger models.

Roman Holiday

1960s Vespa chic with Anthony Perkins

Using a Vespa to rediscover life

Liev Schreiber on his Vespa

Anne Hathaway's Vespa

When you see a Vespa in an old B&W film, you get all warm and fuzzy and romantic. You might even think of how Gregory Peck got driven all around Rome with Audrey Hepburn's precocious princess character (Roman Holiday) doing the driving... and the famous scene where they put their hands into the mouth of La Bocca della Verita (The Mouth of Truth, GVI's mascot!).

When you see the newer breed of chic jelly bean colored scooters, you think, "Sexy, hot, chic! I want one!" You might have also seen the Italian film Ciao Diario (Goodbye Diary), in which director and actor takes a Voyage of discovery on his trusty Vespa to cure his discontent--much as Ulysses (in Greek, Odysseus) did. As Tennyson put it in his poem, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". Perhaps a Vespa is just what you need to look at your life from a different perspective--while having loads of fun.

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The first time I was ever on a Vespa was in my early twenties, popping the clutch and nearly flattening the thing against a parking garage wall. I was always more of a motorcycle guy anyway. I never got the hang of having to keep both feet flat on the floorboards of a scooter... preferring the horse straddling riding style of a motorcycle instead. But lately, I've been waxing poetic about trying a Vespa for myself... as classic as pizza Margarita, gelato or Bolognese!

Emma Stone & Andrew Garfield in Rome

Here's a sampling of Vespa models and what they'll set you back...

• 2017 Vespa GTV 300 ABS from $6,999 -$7,599
• 2017 Vespa GTS 300 Super Sport ABS. $6,799.
• 2017 Vespa GTS 300 Super ABS. $5,099.
• 2017 Vespa Primavera 150 ABS. $3,799.
• 2017 Vespa Primavera 50. $5,099.
• 2017 Vespa Primavera 150 ABS Touring. $5,499.

This Vespa GTV 300 is all tricked out with luggage racks, windscreen and 2-piece seat

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A Brief History of Vespa
The first Vespa scooter was produced in 1946 by Enrico Piaggio. Inspired by the Cushman scooters used by the American military during WWII, designer Corradino D'Ascanio first produced a scooter design for Ferdinando Innocenti (Lambretta), but after a disagreement, took his design to Enrico Piaggio, an aircraft manufacturer. Vespa, meaning "wasp" in Italian, was attributed to Piaggio's first sight of the design, exclaiming that it looked like a wasp. Production started in December 1946.

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But if you want a genuine feel-good reason to get a Vespa, check out the collaboration between Piaggio Group and (RED)®, which has created Euro 4 VESPA 946-RED, a Vespa clad in shiny red, designed to benefit the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, promoted by the organization founded in 2006 by Bono and Bobby Shriver. For every VESPA 946-RED purchased, $150 will go to the Global Fund to fight AIDS with (RED)®, which can provide more than 500 days of lifesaving HIV medication to help prevent a mother living with HIV from passing the virus to her unborn baby. Forget chic.... this is just plain solid! And how's a 90+ mph top speed and

The Vespa also joined with fashion guru Giorgio Armani to produce a version of the 946 called the Emporio Armani, but when I weigh whether I'd rather have some of my cash go into Armani's very full pockets or toward helping the helpless of the world... well, there's only once choice. What goes around comes around, you know?

--Jerry Finzi

The retro look of the Vespa 946-RED

1946 Vespa 98, the first Vespa and inspiration for the 946-RED