University College London

Topic 1:

A motor vehicle for everybody: the Vespa case study

(Un veicolo per tutti: il caso della Vespa)

Word count:

2699

Introduction

Vespa is an example of industrial product that remains relatively unchanged in its shape and at the same became really universal. This motor vehicle was created in post-war

Italy as an answer to an urgent need of society for innovative changes that would give them mobility and sense of freedom. Vespa soon became an icon of Italian design, along with such products as Olivetti’s “Lexicon80” or La Pavoni coffee machine. This vehicle captured

Italian imagination, changing the post-war landscape of the country and paving its way for the international market. Vespa marked vital era in 20th century Italian design and accompanied

Italian transition into modern society.1

Vespa was designed to be a product for masses. It was a response for the post-war social needs for a low-cost vehicle, easy to maintain and manage even on the pitted roads, with design attractive both to men and women of all ages. However, persuading Italians to buy a scooter instead of a car could not have been so simple. Even the idea that everyone can have their own vehicle was not common which was reflected in difficulties in selling the first 50 scooters ever.2 Why then did Vespa become such a successful product? Was it always perceived as a motor vehicle for everybody? In an attempt to answer those questions, I need to analyze this phenomenon from historical and social perspectives, focusing on changing ideology behind Vespa and a social impact and perception of the product.

1 Penny Sparke (1988). Design in Italy: 1870 to the Present. New York: Abbeville Press, Inc., p.84. 2 Stefano Biancalana (2000). Vespa - from Italy with Love. Giorgio Nada Editore: Vimodrone(Milan), p.15.

Origin of Vespa

The idea for an easily affordable vehicle begun in Piaggio, an aeronautical company that suffered bombarding during the Second World War and needed to adapt its production to the peacetime conditions. Post-war Italy struck with hunger, inflation and unemployment needed intellects that would bear the responsibility of reconstructing the country. As Giulio

Carlo Argan argues in his essay, designers faced environment that was both “visually and aurally polluted” both in cities and at home, where “dissemination of inexpensive industrial products for everyday use (…) seemed to provide a healthy restorative.”3 High-quality but affordable design was therefore a mean of reconstruction of society, a way of reestablishing relations with civilized world and begun to be dissociated from privileged class and conspicuous consumption.

One of the reasons behind the Vespa success is its innovative design which was emphasized by its creator, Corradino D’Ascanio, from the beginning of his work for Piaggio.4

Ironically, the inspiration for a light and small vehicle for peacetime came from the wartime solution for Allied Paratroops in a shape of the Welbike scooters. (Fig.1, Fig.2, Fig.3)

3 Giulio Conrado Argan (1972).’ Ideological Development in the Thought and Imagery of Italian Design’. In Emilio Ambasz, Italy:The New Domestic Landscape (pp. 358-369). New York: Distributed by New York Graphic Society, p.367. 4 Athos Bigongiali (2003). Vespa - Italian Street Style. Florence: Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, p. 12.

Fig.1. During World War II paratroops used less aesthetically convincing Welbike scooters.

Fig.2. Vespa’s predecessor was easily folded.

Fig.3. Folded Welbike scooters could be dropped together with soldiers in parachute containers.

The process of developing Vespa’s design shows its tendency to answer social needs as well as to convey the ideology of a practical and democratic design, where “the form of an object does not depend on its function, but rather its function adapts itself to the visual structure of its form”5. Therefore, when Enrico Piaggio saw “Paperino” (Fig.4), the first

“scooter for everybody”, he asked D’Ascanio to redesign it which eventually led to the final shape of Vespa.

Fig.4. Piaggio MP5(1945) – first prototype named “Paperino” (Eng. Donald Duck) because of its characteristic shape reminding a duck.

Fig.5. Vespa 98 (1946) – the first design of Vespa scooter.

In this new model (Fig.5), designer used his aeronautical experience to create cutting- edge vehicle with streamlined, contemporary shape. Still, every part of the scooter had its practical justification. The most important modifications included use of unsellable lightweight materials and engines previously used in a production of aircrafts6 – high quality of design could therefore be maintained on a relatively low-cost level of production.

5 Argan (1972), p. 368. 6 Dick Hebdige. (2000). ‘Object as image: the Italian scooter cycle’. In M. J. Lee, The Consumer Society Reader (pp. 125-161). Padstow: Wiley-Blackwell, p.135. 5

The comfort of driving was improved thanks to D’Ascanio’s idea of ergonomic studies of a person sitting comfortably and then drawing the scooter under him7 (Fig.7). Following this logic, the front shield was designed to protect the driver from getting dirty on pothole- filled roads, it also provided additional space for legs, avoided using transmission chain, placed all the controls on the handlebars and housed spare wheel neatly balancing the engine cover on the opposite side (Fig.6).

Fig.6. Removing cover reveals the spare wheel that can easily replace a flat tyre.

Fig.7. One of the first Vespa designs by D’Ascanio (pre-1946).

7 Tommaso Fanfani. (n.d.). The Vespa Communication Exhibition: Beyond the Imaginary. Retrieved December 2010, from Vespa: http://www.uk.vespa.com/en_UK/amo_vespa/vespa_story/comunicazione_vespa/ approfondimenti_1.aspx

Therefore, Vespa from technical point of view was easily and comfortable to ride even for less experienced drivers. Unlike other scooters or bicycles in the market, it protected driver’s clothes from dirt and enabled to ride even in long skirts. Everybody could drive

Vespa “even in their Sunday best”, including “women and priests.”8

Although Vespa’s price (168,000 lire) was six times lower than the cheapest car, Fiat

Topolino,9 an average Italian, at which the product was aimed, still could not afford to buy it in a post-war crisis. To overcome selling difficulties, in 1948 Enrico Piaggio introduced a new concept of purchase in installments and looked for partners in Germany, England, France and

Spain, creating conditions enabling Vespa to conquer the market.10 Installment payments and sale mechanism with delivery right after paying a minor deposit allowed even less-wealthy

Italians to believe that Vespa is a vehicle truly for everybody. As Corradino D’Ascanio put it,

“the creation of a modern means of transport, with the popularity of a bicycle, the performance of motorbike and the elegance of an automobile became reality”11

8 Biancalana (2000), p.27. 9 Ibid., p.7. 10 Fanfani (n.d.) 11 Bigongiali (2003), p.17.

Social impact of Vespa

Quick development of media made consumer goods a central concern for most

Italians, even the poorest ones. Vespa, that became widely affordable thanks to the installment payments, stood at the centre of this transformation. According to Giorgio Bocca, in post-war

Italy mass consumption created a basis for national identity that so far had been virtually absent.12 This statement seems to find its confirmation in the broad theory of design by

Bauhaus based on an example of Germany after the First World War according to which design is the process of changing the meaning and value of aesthetic experience to coincide with the transition of society from authoritarian into functional one.13 Indeed, in Italy the period 1940-55 was marked with neorealism and democratic idealism, promoting products within everyone’s reach and brining into focus everyday life of the poor and working class.

Vespa was a perfect example of such product – symbol of post-fascist democracy and hope for the future due to its contemporary but somehow familiar shape as many everyday products at the time were characterized by similar organic, slightly curved lines.

Therefore, designing Vespa as a mass product was a mean of designing consumption behavior and shaping aesthetic taste of the society.14 The success of the product in a great part resulted from an innovative marketing that managed to create an image of cheerful, likeable product that soon became its owner’s companion both at leisure and work. However, this was possible only when the initial advertising strategy was abandoned which was focused on informing the public only about performance and price of the vehicle.15 More sophisticated and aggressive campaign was launched at the beginning of the fifties where modern tools of communication helped to reach almost all social classes both in Italy and abroad.

12 Adam Arvidsson. (2001). ‘From Counterculture to Consumer Culture : Vespa and the Italian youth market’, 1958 −78. Journal of Consumer Culture , p.49. 13 Argan (1972), p. 359. 14 Ibid., p. 359. 15 Biancalana (2000), p.38.

Innovative character of Vespa advertisements was often based on a play of words and simple graphics. The first campaign of this type was born under a slogan: Vespizzatevi! (“Vespify yourself!”) and it paved way for further marketing strategy of Piaggio. Looking at posters from 1950s, it is clear that Piaggio consistently realized its idea behind Vespa as a universal and reliable vehicle for everyday use. Not only was it shown as a mean of modern urban transport, way of commuting for both businessmen and workers (Fig.9.), but it was a vehicle for the whole families (with attached sidecar), enabling them to go shopping or for trips outside the city. (Fig.8)

Fig.8. Part of a brochure for UK market showing versatility and multi-task character of Vespa, 1949.

Fig.9. “Vespizzatevi - for your work, for your entertainment” (mid-1950s). This advertisement is deprived of Italian chic and style, in its character it reminds rather a socialist poster, showing how Vespa empowered the working class.

Indeed, mobility of Vespa and its high efficiency (up to 100 miles on a single gallon of fuel)16 allowed to travel for longer trips. In Italy where in early 1950s over 90% of dwellings nationwide were deprived either of electricity or running water and inside bathroom17 this that kind of tourism was a remarkable change in a lifestyle and possibility to run away from ordinary life.

Although at the beginning Vespa was not aimed at any particular target and it was functioning rather as an idealized concept of a “vehicle for everybody”, the statistics show that the vast majority of Vespa owners were amongst blue-collar and white-collar workers and it was popular amongst young people, aged 21-31. (Fig.10, Fig.11).

Vespa owners

Blue-c workers 3% 2% 2% 7% White-c workers 30% Shopkeepers 10% Craftsmen 16% 30% Men of professions Students Doctors Fig.10. Vespa’s owners by profession. Own work based Clergy on Bigongiali, 2003, p.74.

Vespa owners by age

20% 18-20 40% 21-31 35% 31-41 over 40 Fig.11. Vespa’s owners by age. Own work based on Bigongiali, 2003, p.74.

16 Bigongiali (2003), p.118. 17 Ibid., p.74

Therefore, Vespa market defined itself in a natural way, according to the specific needs of social groups, and it was rather a grass-roots process. Vespa was a practical device for workers and tradesmen which became evident in further modification of the vehicle, including the most popular one – the Vespa Ape, created to meet growing needs for a cheap way of transport (Fig.11).

Fig.12. Vespa Ape, 1963 – very popular model amongst tradesmen in Italy and all southern Europe.

On the other hand, the social aspect of Vespa was vital for other groups using Vespa in their everyday life. It gave important in post-war Europe sense of freedom but it also allowed people to share similar ideas and lifestyle, creating specific communities which organized trips and rallies across the Italy and abroad. The first rally took place on Fiera di Milano,

1948, where 2,000 Vespas congregated on the Milanese streets forming a “silver swarm”, leaving public opinion open-mouthed.18 Although primarily arranged to encourage use of Vespa, rallies soon became a social phenomenon, giving birth to numerous Vespa Clubs supported by Piaggio.

18 Biancalana (2000), p.56.

One of the most remarkable rallies was the Women’s Meet of San Remo in July 1950, congregating 250 female showing Vespa as “an instrument of emancipation” and demanding their rights.19 Women formed an important part of Vespa marketing strategy from the very beginning (Fig.13) which was unusual at the time when motorcycle was considered to be a typically masculine vehicle.

Fig.13. Vespa poster by Martelei, 1946. Smartly dressed woman driving Vespa projects upcoming social revolution.

In 1951, the first Piaggio calendar was published. Issued every year, it is a perfect source for analyzing development of trends and increasing modernity of the society. Every time the message behind the beautiful women showed with famous places in the background was clear – with Vespa you can reach every destination. Vespa brings freedom and freshness, although it often implied erotic meaning. However, it is still useful when you go shopping or need to take children to school. Piaggio mastered the balance between freedom of the individual and usefulness for the family.20

19 Ibid., p.58. 20 Klaus Neumann-Braun (2010, vol.6). ‘Retro Meets Rat, or the Vespa Legacy in the Hands of Young People’. International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, Retrieved from: http://ijms.nova.edu/Spring2010/IJMS_Artcl.NeumannBraun.html.

Only ten years later the type of woman promoted by Piaggio – free, creative and independent (Fig.14) - became common on Italian streets. In an interview for Rivista Piaggio,

1969, with a fourteen-year-old girl Mavi Soldatini, she confirms the thesis that Vespa gave much to women lib and that it had mainly a psychological value. She says: „it makes me feel happy, (…) completely free from everyone, from the usual boring things.”21

Fig.14. Vespa UK newspaper advertisement promoting women’s

independence, 1961.

Moreover, this social and psychological value of Vespa was generally important for youth – the market that at the beginning seemed to be underestimated by Piaggio. Before, promotional emphasis was varied according to the needs of relevant target groups – workers, women, families, lovers (“Paradise for two” campaign) – each of them responding to different slogans and graphics. Towards the mid-1960s, the problem of capturing the attention of young consumers became more urgent. It was observed that scooter-owners tended to exchange

Vespas for cars as soon as they could afford it. In addition, in 1965 new traffic legislation was

21 Bigongiali (2003), p.197.

copyright @ Aleksandra Kozawska, 2011 introduced, enforcing driving license for vehicles with engines over 50cc.22 In order to avoid losing an important market, scooters with 50cc engines started to be produced, finding

Piaggio in a position where its product was directly aimed at the young people aged 14-17

(minimal age for driving and the age limit for a driving license). Thus, Vespa market started to split, with a strong shift towards the youth market. To address this group, Piaggio launched a new campaign by Leader advertising agency. Being perfectly aware of the gap between the new and old consumers, in 1968 it came with an idea of a new symbol - an apple. In a famous slogan: Chi Vespa mangia le mele (“those who Vespa eat the apple”) (Fig.15), apple stood for all appealing experience that Vespa could bring. It is interesting how this symbol was perceived by different social groups, ranging from youth aged 14-20 seeing it as an incentive to “face the adventure of life” with friends and away from the family, through more mature people for whom it acquired erotic associations and the pleasure of sin, ending with adults, over 50, perceiving it as an absurd expression.23 The apple was therefore an exclusively young symbol, positioning Vespa as a vehicle for a new generation.

Fig.15. Chi Vespa mangia le mele poster (1969-71) with new apple symbol by Leader agency.

22 Arvidsson (2001), p.52. 23Ibid., p.54.

Still, it can be discussed whether Vespa lost its democratic spirit when it became a product aimed at youth. On one hand, the crisis was over, the society became wealthier so a “democratic vehicle” fulfilling everyone’s needs was no longer needed on a capitalistic, diverse market. On the other hand, after this inevitable shift, Vespa gained new power.

If Vespa meant freshness and youth, having it could therefore make you look younger. Genius marketing throughout all those years helped to establish Vespa as a trendy product.

Everybody could see it in the movies, with the total number of Vespa-starrers reaching 83.24

Celebrities were made honorary chairpersons of the clubs and many personal initiatives and record breakings gave Vespa a “cult object” status. Vespa became an icon in English speaking countries mainly due to the Mods - a rebellious subculture based on fashion and music that modified simple lines of Vespa (Fig.16). Those strategies were an anticipation of modern techniques such as viral marketing,25 where consumers themselves spread the message about the product which inevitably becomes part of their lives.

Fig.16. Example of a mod Vespa: vehicle with numerous rearview

mirrors and reflectors gave it rebellious, personalized character, UK, 1960s.

24 Omar Calabrese. (2003). Birth and History of an object of desire. Retrieved December 13, 2010, from http://www.uk.vespa.com. 25 Neumann-Braun (2010).

Moreover, Vespa soon gained additional meaning. Facing growing competition from car industry, Leader agency came with a term “Sardomobili” (sardine and automobili). Not only did it represent congestion of city traffic, but also was kind of “critique of mass society” and its tendency to follow the crowd. This allowed Vespa to stand up against the car no longer as a cheap alternative, but as a wider antithetical ideological outlook26 attractive both to young and adult consumer. Thus, the meaning of Vespa became more ideological than functional and this is how it remains even today. In the age of the internet, Vespa again fulfils social desires with new slogan: “Travel local – think global”, promising new multicultural mobility without borders and changing together with modernizing society. (Fig.17)

Fig.17. Young international couple is holding hands next to a brand new Vespa. Those new advertisements focus again on Vespa’s multifaceted character and universal value of freedom and mobility in a globalised world. By Roncaglia & Wijkander, 2000.

26 Arvidsson (2001), p.54.

Conclusion

Vespa was one of those objects that formed a stable part of our daily landscape and culture, similar like today’s Apple or Coca-Cola. After 60 years of existence, it truly became an icon. There were several factors that decided about its success and it was not only its original but functional design or reliable two-stroke engine, but its extraordinary ability to interpret the times and reinvent Vespa to meet people expectations. Even more, thanks to the innovative marketing, consumers started to modify neutral lines of Vespa on their own, giving it more personalized character. According to Andrea Branzi, this is “an unstable equilibrium between the culture of consumption and the culture of production”, a place where meet “two opposite utopias – a final product and the endless transformation of a product”27, making further development always possible.

Vespa had a tough competition mainly from Lambretta, manufactured by Innocenti.

However, unlike other scooters, it developed an unique relationship with its users, that was more physiological and less physical – “a relationship of ease”.28 Riding Vespa was stable and almost trouble-free, which was one of the key secrets of its popularity amongst women and youth whereas Lambretta was advertised as a “sport car on two wheels” which was probably more appealing to the men. This positive and captivating image that Piaggio managed to construct over those years helped it to face also the competition from the automobile industry. Similarly as after the war Vespa was an answer to the “visually and aurally polluted”29 landscape of Italy, now it is recreated as an alternative to congested and polluted modern cities, again revealing its sensitivity to changes in lifestyle and proving its democratic

27 Andrea Branzi. (1994). ‘Italian Design and Complexity of Modernity’. In G. Celant, The Italian metamorphosis, 1943-1968 (p.559). New York : Guggenheim Museum. 28 Hebdige (2000), p.143. 29 Argan (1972), p.367.

copyright @ Aleksandra Kozawska, 2011 character. As this overview of Vespa case study hopefully showed, it is a product which development represents overall evolution of Italian society, including emancipation of less wealthy classes and emergence of women and the young as independent individuals with their own desires. Therefore, I agree with Omar Calabrese that “Vespa is probably an immortal object that unites generations and social classes, sexes, tastes and trends”30 and this is where its democratic character truly lies.

30 Calabrese (2003).

Bibliography:

1) Argan, G. C. (1972). Ideological Development in the Thought and Imagery of Italian Design. In E. Ambasz, Italy:The New Domestic Landscape (pp. 358-369). New York: Distributed by New York Graphic Society.

2) Arvidsson, A. (2001). From Counterculture to Consumer Culture : Vespa and the Italian youth market, 1958 −78. Journal of Consumer Culture , 47-71.

3) Biancalana, S. (2000). Vespa - from Italy with Love. Giorgio Nada Editore: Vimodrone(Milan).

4) Bigongiali, A. (2003). Vespa - Italian Street Style. Florence: Giunti Gruppo Editoriale.

5) Branzi, A. (1994). Italian Design and Complexity of Modernity. In G. Celant, The Italian metamorphosis, 1943-1968 (pp. 598-607). New York : Guggenheim Museum.

6) Calabrese, O. (2003). Birth and History of an object of desire. Retrieved December 13, 2010, from http://www.uk.vespa.com/en_UK/amo_vespa/vespa_story/comunicazione_vespa

7) Fanfani, T. (n.d.). The Vespa Communication Exhibition: Beyond the Imaginary. Retrieved December 2010, from Vespa: http://www.uk.vespa.com/en_UK/amo_vespa/vespa_story/

8) Hebdige, D. (2000). Object as image: the Italian scooter cycle. In M. J. Lee, The Consumer Society Reader (pp. 125-161). Padstow: Wiley-Blackwell.

9) Neumann-Braun, K. (2010, vol.6). Retro Meets Rat, or the Vespa Legacy in the Hands of Young People. International Journal of Motorcycle Studies , http://ijms.nova.edu/Spring2010/IJMS_Artcl.NeumannBraun.html.

10) Sparke, P. (1988). Design in Italy: 1870 to the Present. New York: Abbeville Press, Inc.

Photo credits:

Fig.1, Fig.2, Fig.3. Photos provided by http://maticmod.blogspot.com/2009/08/welbike- parascooters-pics.html.

Fig.4. Photos provided by http://vespahelp.it.

Fig.5. Photo provided by Ana Sayfa, [http://www.ortac.net/Ertugrul/Htm-tr/Bilgi-

VespaModeller-1.htm].

Fig.6. Photo provided by Popular Science (February 1963), p. 95.

Fig.7. Corradino D’Ascanio, 1945. Provided by: http://www.unich.it/progettistisidiventa/LEZIONI/Didattica.htm

Fig.8. Provided by Vespa House: http://vespa-house.com.au/

Fig.9. Provided by http://www.flickr.com/photos/culturesponge/83219188/lightbox/

Fig.10 – Own work based on Bigongiali, 2003, p.74.

Fig.11. – Own work based on Bigongiali, 2003, p.74.

Fig.12 Provided by http://www.papas.ic.cz/vespa-ape.html

Fig.13 Poster by Martelei. Provided by http://vespa-house.com.au

Fig.14. Provided by http://vespa-house.com.au

Fig.15. Provided by http://vespa-house.com.au/index.php?page=gallery

Fig.16 Provided by: Den of the Vespa, http://scooterlounge.com

Fig.17. Provided by http://vespa-house.com.au/index.php?page=gallery