Modern Vespa

Or just some of the front end bits.

https://www.visordown.com/news/industry/piaggio-prepares-innovative-mp3-three-wheeler-evolution

pic from patent
...

Fugly about to get fuglier!

Just another unnecessary complication by the looks of it, and definitely bizzarre.

...How in the hell could they possibly get it to do that?

I'm not an engineer. Explain it to me simply, whoever can understand it well enough.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here by guessing that it would probably be tied into the MP3's tilting mechanism.

Maybe something as simple as a rod mechanism that goes from the moon disc mechanism to the headlight??? Who knows? Strictly a guess.

Attach the front facia bits to one of the horizontal parallelogram beams.
Probably the lower one. By way of some extended spacers or something.

In the end I got tired of wrenching my MP3 500 and put a bullet in the big pig. It was fun while it lasted but it required service too often and ate too many parts that cost too much money.

I don't know if I should be amused or depressed that Piaggio has found a way to make an already complicated machine more complicated.

Makes me love my GTS all that much more.

Doesn't seem complicated assuming it's simply mechanical, but I fail to see any potential benefit in having rotating front fascia just so that the logo stays vertical? Does the lighting work better in any way? I have a car with "adjustable front lighting" in turns and it honestly makes zero difference. They even fixed it under warranty and I had no idea anything had broken

Last edited by PabloLie on Sun, 15 Jan 2023 23:25:02 +0000; edited 1 time

to quote the article:

Two issues are confronted with this new design: headlight angle, and aerodynamics.

Aerodynamics. Yeah, sure. How often are you leaned over far enough for that to matter?

That drawing looks like the Alien queen coming at me. Creepy.

Have 79,500 miles on my 2008 MP3 500 with just regular maintenance.
Did have to revive it from a wreck at one point.
I am sure it will go well over 100,000 miles the way it runs at 79,500 miles.

Mine was still running like a top when I dumped it, great motor that seemed willing to go on forever. However, while rebuilding the front end, I found some manufacturing errors that gave me the creeps stuff that should never have made it past QA.

I spent much of my professional life involved in the engineering of bearings for the automotive industry and while diving into that front end I saw too many things that were just "good enough". Definitely not built to last. I can't say I was impressed with some of the rear end structure either.

I rode that bike pretty hard and at some fairly high speeds, I don't want my life depending on a front end thats under engineered.