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Short wheelbase chassis with small hatch
aka prima serie aka 1.serie aka corta telaio (short frame)
If perhaps you cannot see the small hatch itself (in a photograph of only the left side, for example) you can look for this: the forward end of the bottom edge of the cowl has a pronounced downward curve. The floorboard and the sides reach the same distance toward the back.
Unificata came in the fall of 1965 with the debut of the VMA1 "Nuova" and the Super Sprints. Unificata means unified. They called it that because they transitioned the Vespa 50/50S/90 to the new base with the large engine door and thus unified production, all small frames now being built on the same platform. They had to do this because they had transitioned to a larger engine case for the 125 and they only wanted to manufacture one engine case moving forward just as they only wanted to manufacture one chassis moving forward. The larger engine case requires the unificata chassis. With the unificata molds, the pronounced curve at the forward end of the bottom of the cowl is gone. Because it is still short wheelbase the floor and the sides still reach the same distance back.
The allungata or long chassis made its debut in the fall of 1967 with the Primavera which also sported a brand new company logo. Some production that was released around this time used the new long chassis base but still had some square logo legshields to use up, so there is a brief transition period lasting into 1968 for this back stock to dry up and all small frames moving forward will adopt the long chassis and have a hex logo except for the Super Sprints. For those they merely stamped out all the necessary parts, legshields and bases, before decommissioning the unificata chassis molds such that they were able to assemble small batches yearly until 1971. With the long chassis as you can see the sides now reach farther back than the floorboard. This demonstrates the three centimeters that the chassis was stretched.
If it is a model that has center rails like the Vespa 50/50S/90 you can tell short wheelbase from long wheel base quite easily by the added gap at the body seam.
Corta... raised bottom profile of the cowl with a pronounced drop at the forward end. Floor and sides reach equally far back up to the engine bolt... Center rails reach seam.
The graceful curve leading up to the raised profile of a first series cowl...
In this ad you can see it is not only corta but a Vespa 50 which had rubber floor strips unlike the 50S and 90 which had steel rails with rubber inserts, but you can still see all the features mentioned in the above comment.
Unificata debuted in fall of 1965, built for this model, the Nuova 125. You can see in this pic that it has a large engine door and the floor and the sides meet, so it is still short wheelbase. This is clearly unificata.
Even on the left side, you will see the floor and the sides meet and no sharp curve at the bottom of the cowl, proving it is unificata base, even though you might not be able to see the door side.
On the allungata, you can see the little shelf created by the side for welding to the floorboard actually extended towards the rear a little bit past where the floorboard ends.
(cont.)
⚠️ Last edited by swiss1939 on UTC; edited 2 times