![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wantedinrome.com\/i\/preview\/storage\/uploads\/2026\/06\/05_Mostra_80_Anni_di_Vespa.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nVespa advertising campaign from the 1980s<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
He created the first motorcycle with a monocoque body, dispensing with a tubular steel frame, placing the gearchange on the handlebars, and drawing on aircraft landing gear for the front suspension.<\/p>\n
When Enrico Piaggio saw the prototype, he reportedly exclaimed, “It looks like a wasp!” –\u00a0Sembra una vespa!\u00a0– giving the vehicle its name.<\/p>\n
Production began in Pontedera, Tuscany, with an initial hand-beaten batch of 60 units. By 1947 output had grown to 20,000 units per year, and by 1956 – just a decade after its birth – the one millionth Vespa had rolled off the production line.<\/p>\n
More than two million units have been produced in the last decade alone, and the brand remains one of the most recognisable in the world.<\/p>\n
Today Vespa is manufactured at three sites: in Pontedera for European and Western markets, in Vinh Phuc in Vietnam for the Far East, and at the Baramati plant in India.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rome mural<\/p>\n
Alongside the main event, Vespa has commissioned a new piece of urban art in\u00a0Rome’s Pigneto neighbourhood, at\u00a0Via Fortebraccio 19.<\/p>\n