Vespa [Paperback]

Davide Mazzanti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2004

From Roman Holiday to Quadrophenia, the Vespa scooter has long been a symbol of youthful independence as well as one of the most recognizable pop culture icons of the 20th century. Immortalized as a design classic, the ever-growing ranks of Vespa dealers and scooter clubs worldwide attest to its enduring popularity at the street level. For the first time, the complete history of this chic mode of transport is celebrated in Vespa: Style in Motion. Fully authorized by and drawn from the archives of its manufacturer, Piaggio, this mighty volume tells the Vespa's story from its birth, right after World War II, to the brand new Granturismo model. Vespa is filled with hundreds of film stills, advertisements, and period photographs, offering a visual homage for any fan of Italian flair. Specifications and diagrams of all 41 scooter models, plus in-depth profiles of 15 classic Vespas, provide a detailed reference for true aficionados. Always in vogue, the Vespa remains the ride of choice for hipsters and internationalists everywhere. This, for them, is the last word.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stylishly designed with eye-catching page layouts and beautiful images, this history of the "the wasp" will delight any Vespa aficionado. The late Roberto Segoni, professor of industrial design at Florence University, sets the production in line with an introduction that celebrates Italy’s post-WWII design history and situates the Vespa alongside such achievements at the Olivetti typewriter and the Arco lamp. The rest of the book traces the evolution of the motorbike’s signature C-shaped seat, its engine and its worldwide popularity, providing a detailed catalog of Vespas from the first 1946 model to the present. (The book also includes four short essays on Vespas, one of them by New Yorker correspondent Bill Buford.) Early black and white factory photos, flashy color ads and stills from films and commercials break up the text and turn this book into fun coffee-table history. Now that Vespas can be legally imported into the U.S., the number of American Vespa fans is growing, and this volume is clearly formulated to charm them. 1,000+ illustrations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Piaggio , founded in 1884 in Pontedera, Italy, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of motorized two-wheeled vehicles. With the debut of its Vespa in 1945, Piaggio created the vehicle that is practically synonymous with the word "scooter."

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (April 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811842487
• ISBN-13: 978-0811842488
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #366,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Professional & Technical > Automotive > Motorcycles > History

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Value, but..., December 13, 2004

By 

Thomas Judd - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vespa (Paperback)

I've never written a review for Amazon before, but after buying this book and reading it cover to cover, I felt compelled to air my criticisms somewhere. Overall, I thought that it is one of the best books on the subject.
Being a Vespa owner, I was really impressed with the technical content and COLOR photos. It's the essays and figure captions that irritated me. The figure captions were frequently so vague that I couldn't tell which picture they were referring to, which is a problem because they are not co-located with the picture.
Also, many of the essays were really hard to understand, frequently too short (when they were interesting) or too long (when they were boring) and presumed a lot of knowledge of Italian 20th century history. So, I failed to get the point of many of them.
Believe me, I read these articles very closely trying very hard to get the author's point, but many of them were written in an artsy style, which was almost incomprehensible at times. So, it could be very frustrating to read. I can only conclude that they were translated from Italian and something was lost along the way.
All that being said, I still think it is worth the price for the photos and technical articles.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book worthy of its subject, January 28, 2005

By 

Daniel Attila "Daniel Attila" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vespa (Paperback)

I rarely give 5 stars to a product, but this one is flawless. I bought this book to learn about the various vintages of Vespa so I could make an informed choice when buying one. Given the beauty of this scooter, I wanted a book of similar quality, and I was not disappointed.

This book has explained everything about the company and its products together with their long history of excellence in an easy to read, beautifully laid out volume. I now know which Vespa I want: ALL OF THEM!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice, but not essential, August 14, 2006

By 

João Martins (Portugal) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vespa (Paperback)

Nice book, excelent pictures and lots of info related to the history of the scooter, including all sorts of stories about the role of the scooter in its day, but... The book chooses a few models to portrait in detail and leaves out a couple of important ones, including the rally models and the fact that its an "official biography" tends to make it lack objectivity very often.

All in all it's like a big, beautiful ad for the Vespa and should be bought with that in mind!