Will Piaggio, already Italy's leader in two and three-wheels, make something with four?
Piaggio is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to Italian motorcycles, owning and creating vehicles under the Piaggio, Vespa, Moto Guzzi, Gilera, Derbi and Aprilia brands. The majority of the vehicles the Piaggio Group sells are scooters, with motorcycles and rickshaw's making up the rest. But, here is an interesting rumor I found scanning 2 Stroke Buzz: will Piaggio start making four-wheeled vehicles in India?
The main point of the article, which was originally written by Adil Jal Darukhanawala and printed in the December, 2006 issue of Bike India, is that Piaggio will develop a brand new Vespa for the booming Indian market. This is big news in itself, but something that stood out to me is this quote: "At the Milan Show BIKE INDIA caught up with both Roberto Colaninno and also Ravi Chopra, CEO of Piaggio Vehicles in India and they both confirmed that it was only a matter of time before the company went on to add both two as well as four wheeled vehicles in its portfolio."
The article finishes by stating that we should see examples of the new Vespa in twelve months, but no timetable is mentioned regarding a four-wheeled vehicle from Piaggio. They did just release the MP3...
Related:
[Source: Adil Jal Darukhanawala / India Bike via 2 Stroke Buzz]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ME 1:22PM (2/28/2007)
Vespa has made a four wheeler in the past.
http://www.web-cars.com/Vespa/
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Bryan Bedell 5:10PM (2/28/2007)
Jeremy:
Thanks for the shout-out
These f**kers are leeching your content... I noticed because I got a trackback link from them:
http://blog.puregreencars.com/wp-comments-post.php
it looks like you're using wordpress, block their IP using the "anti-leech" plug-in. I've been getting pounded by this kind of stuff, too.
As far as piaggio 4-wheelers, they make them already:
http://www.vtl.piaggio.com/
there's talk of LPG and other greener versions, too, if they're not already making them.
The new indian factory would be building these light industrial vehicles, I don't see piaggio getting into the consumer 4-wheel market.
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Jeremy Korzeniewski 9:34PM (2/28/2007)
Huh, you learn something new every day! I had never seen those Piaggio 4 wheelers before, only the three wheelers. Thanks for the tip!
I'll see what I can do about the blood-sucker.
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Jaime 8:44AM (3/01/2007)
Their idea is to build the "QUARGO" pick-up in India, already build in Italy since 2005. This is spiritual succesor of the POCKER, that was a 4-wheel version of the APE 3-wheeler.
PIAGGIO has other 4-wheelers in its portfolio, like the PORTER truck (gas, diesel, LPG or electric powered) and the M-500 minicar.
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Vikas Girdhar 7:50AM (3/26/2007)
Of course.
If they have to survive the onslaught to Tata Motors ACE.
http://predic-auto-indi.blogspot.com/
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