Modern Vespa

I'm fairly new to this club so the question may sound ridiculous or may have been answered long ago but why doesn't Piaggio/Vespa advertise more? It is because they want to be elitist (in a good way) or what?

Granted, MV is abuzz with remarks about the MP3 so it may seem more popular than I think but it (MP3) has received a fair, if not limited, amount of magazine publicity but nothing really offered to the general public. If you're not reading Motorcyle magazines, it's possible to not know this scooter even exists.

If Piaggio is counting on word-of-mouth, that seems dicey at best. I know Vespa and to a lesser degree, Piaggio have good name recognition but I don't quite understand why they're not making a bigger splash about thier products.

Any ideas?

The only thing that makes sense to me (and Piaggio doesn't always make sense to me) is that right now in the states they don't need to advertise it. I'd bet every MP3 that they could ship here is sold plus a backlog (of course some shops still have one or two... I'm generalizing) Once they get to producing these things at some volume and see if it's worth importing them at volume would it make sense to spend money. So far word of scooter-geek mouth has been enough for what they can ship us.

...then again, I could be wrong.

Just my opinion (meaning this is based on no personal knowledge or fact), but I wonder if it has to do with scooters / scooterists being kept on the fringe of American society. I think the very fact that motorcycles are seen as "manlier" makes them a helluva lot more socially accepted here...unfortunately, scooters don't have that luxury. (Might also explain why it's common to see a Triumph or Kawasaki motorcycle commercial, but no Vespa / Piaggio.) Scooters are definitely one of those things that you either totally get or totally don't, and chances are, if you "get" it, you're going to do the research necessary into finding that perfect scoot irregardless of advertising. Like my brother said after he found out what I paid for my GT: "Why didn't you just get a motorcycle?" He doesn't get it. And I don't think most people do, thus, the absence of mainstream advertising and reliance on "scooter geek" word of mouth (as suggested by lomunchi).

That said, I HAVE seen the MP3 in more print media than any Vespa. Hell, it was on the cover of a USA TODAY (or something like that) insert in newspapers nationwide. That's pretty good coverage, if you ask me.

The above sounds very possible, both of them. I know that when I started looking I sure as hell do not remember any Vespa ads. I have seen 1 Vespa billboard locally. That particular dealer no longer carries Vespa.

I would love to see more Ads in some ways, in others not. I sometimes like being the "Lone" Vespa around these parts. Othertimes I wish I had people to ride with.

In the end we still are not mainstream, and I kinda like it, Beale.

Oh there is no question that in the US, the Scooter remains the domain of the metro-culture, and most of the US remains very rural, even in suburbia. I hear all about it. I live in a very rich, rural suburb of Atlanta, where you can count the number of active scooter riders on one hand (we all know who each other is and the scooters on sight). We all take crap daily from sportbike and harley owners that require manly objects to reaffirm their manliness. (which leads me to wonder how many of them ride their manly bikes to pick up their viagra and cialis srips but that's another subject entirely).

*BUT*

This is something that Piaggio should understand, and they can overcome it with some proper ads, they just aren't. If you ask me, right now, I see Kymco USA making more of a traditional marketing push than I have ever seen Vespa do. I've seen a few TV ads around the country, and several billboards, in addition to Kymco actively sponsoring rallies and events around the country. Meanwhile, Piaggio can't even keep a blog site alive.

Piaggio USA strikes me as one of the schizophrenic companies in the US right now, and they really need to get their ducks in a row before they can bite off a massive PR compaign.

The USA and Canada represent a tiny segment of the world scooter-market. Advert money is better spent in Europe and Asia.

I would agree. Just recently I saw my first new Toyota Prius Hybrid commercial on T.V. Until recently you had a waiting list, but now the dealer where I live has about 8 of them sitting on his lot.

Advertising is expensive. Word of mouth is free, and in some cases more effective. Piaggio advertises in the niche/target-market magazines. I wouldn't expect to see a Piaggio Suberbowl commercial anytime soon (10 years ago when I worked at Apple, Superbowl commercials cost $1,000,000 a minute. I hate to think what they cost now...).

I don't recall EVER seeing a Motorcycle advertisement. I'm sure they have them, but I've never seen one -- that's how effective that kind of marketing is for someone like me...

-Dan

That won't last long. My wife and I bought a Prius last week...had we done it a week earlier, we would have been able to get Toyota's special financing rates. As it stands, though, gas prices shot up, and Toyota (smartly, though much to my annoyance) discontinued those very same rates for all of their hybrid models.

I have a feeling the waiting lists will return this summer. At least we already have ours, horrible interest rate and all.

In the past, I would have agreeed with you, BUT with the cost of fuel soaring with no letup in site and Piaggio's profit up 60% in the USA last year, I'd think that Piaggio might take a second look at this country. A little PR would go a long ways. I believe motorcycle profits were up last year, too; but by less the 15%. My numbers might be off, but the fact remains that the scooter riding population of this country is the fastest growing segment of the motorized two wheel segment.

I couldn't agree with you more, particularly the part of rising fuel prices. People are looking for cheap transportation that is fun to ride and shows some measure of fuel efficiency. It seems to me if Piaggio ran a 30 second commercial at 2 AM on a Sunday night on a cable channel, they'd have trouble satisfying the demand.

By the way, how do you guys get quoted sections shaded grey?

You've got to carefully balance the quote tags. Also, your profile seems to have BBCode disabled by default, so any BBCode (like the quote tags, for instance) won't work right.

I fixed your post to show the quoted text properly. You can edit your post to see what it looks like.

Thanks. Now, if I can remember how to do this the next time, I'll be in good shape.

I am a little in the dark on this whole three-wheeled malarkey so please bear with me and forgive any unintended offence to those who have bought or will buy one. Not casting judgement on it until I have at least seen one up close or even take one for a spin.

I saw the promo video on You Tube, lots of spliced-in footage of fast and vicious predators, screaming through winding mountain streets, all coupled with the Ramones and David Bowie as a sound track. What's the target audience here? Are they shooting for people who want to be fast jaguar-like predators on the road (the bright matching leather outfit crowd) or are they going for the "I fancy a latte - I'll nip down the café on my MP3" crowd? Lots of storage for groceries or beach gear but the ad doesn't seem to play to the inner-urban, slightly nerdy but still cool, fun-seeker market. For someone who already owns a GT, what will this MP3 offer that they currently lack, other than the obvious extra wheel?

From the point of view of physics, aside from not having to put your feet down at the lights, are there any inherent stability/handling benefits to being on three wheels rather than two? If the cornering grip of one tyre is spread over two, does it halve it and spread it between the two (making two tyres, each with half the grip of only one) or does it double it? (two wheels, two surfaces in contact with the black top). When combined with the weight of the rider under braking does extra weight up front coupled with roughly-equal centred weight at the rear mean if you brake too hard you'll go over the bars?

What engine capacity, is it a standard 200-250 that just has to push more weight at the front end or a special engine?

I asked a dealer what he thought of it and he said the target market (in these parts anyway) was small but the few who bought them would love them for what they are, a machine pretty much designed to be fun rather than a straight out mode of transport. Some people use quad bikes on farms for example, but a lot of people just twatt about the sand dunes in them having a hoot.

I guess the main question is, is this a working bike, a pleasure bike or an attempt to bridge the gap? And if it's the latter, will it be a success?

Discuss.

In a recent interview in Motociclismo, the leading motorcycle magazine in Italy, the CFO of Piaggio said the company was taken aback by the strength of the positive response to the MP3 and they are, at this point unable to produce sufficient machines to meet demand. Hence the lack of advertising.
Furthermore Motorciclismo tested the 500cc Gilera Fuoco which uses the new 4-valve 2-spark plug MASTER engine and produces 40-odd hp. They described the Fuoco ("fire" in Italian) as very peppy and powerful and a bit of a handful in urban settings. Top speed around 88mph, weather protection zero.

Billy - I can't answer your questions about target market (and honestly, I don't think Piaggio has any idea exactly who their market is yet) but my review of the MP3 should shed quite a bit of light on your other questions.

Excellent review, you answered a lot of the questions I had, thanks Jess.

I still can't for the life of me find an answer to the question "why?" but perhaps that may come after a test ride, should I ever take one.

for me, why i just might get one....i am a year round rider...i also only ride my stella and my bicycle....7 miles each way....the only time i don't ride (and bum a ride from my wife or daughter) is when it snows. it doesn't snow much here in the city, mostly in the mountain next to us...but we do get a couple of inches a couple of times each winter...i won't ride my stella in a couple of inches of snow, but i would ride the MP3---carefully

also my stella is perfect for city riding, but for a trip to Santa Fe it has a harder time...the MP3 would be perfect for the mountain twisties between here and santa fe...and would be fine for other short highway trips...will i take weekly rides to denver or phoenix on it? nope. would i plan a once a year ride to denver or phoenix on it...hell yes.

basically it would be a good bike for the city and a good bike for some longer trips and an amazing bike for twisty roads. if you only get one bike, this could be a great compromise.

if you just do city, the GTS would be probably better...but if you just do city the LX is probably even better than the GTS

if you just do highway, the BV500 is likely the way to do

if you do both (and some mountains too) the GTS or the MP3 would be the way to go

for me it isn't about a fear of putting a foot down...heck, on my test ride i never used that function...i like putting my feet on the road at stops.

for me it is mostly about leaning into turns with better control and stick...followed by better handling at speed and better braking...i also think it would be much more stable if you get a flat

that said, i have to try it one more time before i make up my mind...it is so different than my stella...with my stella i am the master. i throw that puppy around. you don't throw the MP3 around. it is much more stable. but almost too stable. not quite a scooter, not quite a car. it was definitely fun, but a different fun. plus i'm use to gears and noisy engines. might take me a while to get use to a auto that is near silent

g

The other thing about the MP3 is due to its stability and with three wheels, it will allow some people that due one reason or another can't/won't ride a two wheel. Case in point is my wife has problems with her knees and having two wheels up front and the locking ability of the tilt could/should allow her to ride.

I really wish that a 500cc had made it to NA, that would be a great bike for long trips...even two up. I have my BV250 and will also have the MP3 250 for the wife (whenever they get the darn things here in Calgary) and when they have a more powerful engine will probably trade the BV in on it...this may be a great all year round bike (time will tell on that with our winters), but will allow a person to more safely ride in different weather conditions, take longer trips. Also being 1 hour away from the Rocky Mountains, would be great for those twisty rodes and the FI wil handle the changing elevation.

There are many reasons to buy an MP3 and there are reasons to not buy one...you just have to decide whether you want to talk yourself into one or out of one

There may be many reasons for purchasing the mp3 just as there are many reasons for any major purchase. I guess, in the end, it's a personal decision. For me, the scooter was unique and I needed an upgrade to my Honda Metro. The mp3 satisfied those two requirements. The Metro kept me confined to my city and I needed to venture outside its borders. But ultimately, performance and safety are more important to me and again, the mp3 satisfied those needs. Everything I read referenced the safety factor associated with this machine and I thought (still do) that was a good thing. Preventing my face from kissing the asphalt is something I want to do if I can. If the mp3 can help me from doing that, I'm all for it. Don't we all want to stay upright for as long as possible?

I think this might be a case where some of the hype around the MP3 has crossed the line into unrealistic. While there's many incredible things about this bike, the locking suspension is, in my opinion, a bit of a novelty that causes more trouble than it's worth. While you can, indeed, roll up to a stop and lock the suspension, the timing is fairly critical as you have to be going less than (I think) 3mph. A light starts flashing when you're "eligible" to lock, and said light is positioned down a bit on the dashboard. Thus, you have to pay more attention to the dashboard than to the car in front of you while rolling to a stop.

On more than one occasion, I've flicked the lock switch, only to find, moments later, that I had been too early and the lock was not engaged. At that point, I had to get a foot down in a hurry, as the bike had already started tipping over. On one occasion, it got past the point of no return, and the bike came to a rest on the arm of the center stand. Effectively, I had dropped the bike.

As I understand it, the demo bikes floating around the country took a lot of abuse for exactly this reason -- people had read / been told about the locking feature, and thought that this might be a bike suitable for those who couldn't or wouldn't ride a regular scooter. Lots of them tried flicking the switch too soon, and dropped the bike.

I myself have found that I prefer to just put a foot down and be done with it. It's an automatic response and, ironically enough, I'm much less likely to drop the bike that way.

Given that this is also a very heavy bike (compared to the GTS), there's lots of muscling that must be done when moving the bike around (parking, turning around, etcetera). I think that if your wife has problems with her knees, it's going to really show when moving all that weight around.

The place where the locking mechanism is really useful is when parking the bike. Once you come to a stop (and put a foot down) you can flick the switch and pull the emergency brake, and then get off the bike. No man-handling it onto the center stand (which ironically enough is easier on the MP3 than it is on the GTS). It's also handy when you drop your bridge toll money on the ground while waiting in line at the toll booth and need to reach down and pick it up.

Billy, we can tell you all about the features, both real and imaginary; but until you actually ride one, you won't understand. It's one heck of a great handling machine, even when compared to beautifully handling motorcycles.

It's the first modern scooter that I'm chomping at the bit to own. I'm hoping that the 400's will be available when my desire meets my finances!

As I recall from my short test ride, the lock is a switch that you press and hold sideways to get it to engage. What if you just held it to the lock position as you slowed down? Would it engage once you got below the magic speed threshold? That way you wouldn't need to look down to see when the light goes on. I didn't try it, just wondering...

-Dan

That seems like an excellent idea, one that I will try tomorrow. But really, as I think Jess was saying, I would rather put my foot down or engage the "wheel stabalizer thing" when I've stopped and know I'll be there for a while. But I really like the feature when I'm parking the scooter in conjunction with the parking brake. I haven't even tried the kick stand yet.[/quote]

That's an interesting idea, I hadn't thought of that. I'll try it next time I'm on the bike.

I tried the "hold the lock switch before the indicator light came on" experiment today and it didn't work. As I held the switch approaching a stop sign the indicator light never came on until after I released it (the switch). Too bad. That had promise

I tried the same experiment yesterday, to no avail.