Modern Vespa

The reading of photography thread and the single-sided fork thread sparked a thread of thoughts in my head while I'm supposedly to be hard at work (shhhh, don't tell my boss that) so I thought I'll share...

Piaggio started its life making aeroplanes, made military planes during WW2, and the post-war rebuilding of the company saw it produce a motorised scooter model named "Vespa" that was so popular that "Vespa" becomes a brand in itself. Vespa celebrated its 60 years of existence by lauching a "celebration" model, the Vespa LX.

Pentax started its life as an optics company called Asahi Optical Co., made military optics during WW2, and the post-war rebuilding of the company saw it produce a camera model named "Pentax" that was so popular that "Pentax" becomes a brand in itself (so much so the company changed its name to "Pentax Corporation" in the '80s). Pentax celebrated its 60 years of existence by launching a "celebration" model, the Pentax LX.

There, I've just wasted 5 minutes of your life

I had an Asahi Pentax back in the day. It was interesting to watch the names drift toward Pentax. the gray market cameras said Asahi but the US legal imports were pentax only. But the LX was around back in 1980 more or less. Were they celebrating 60 years from 1920?

The Pentax LX was a fantastic pro-level camera, with a much more durable body that was weather sealed compared to the other Pentax cameras. I think it was made from titanium alloy which at the time was very rare and expensive (most titanium was sourced from the Soviet Union and this was before the Cold War was over).
My camera choice at the time was the Olympus Om4. Wish I still had it...

Thanks for the memories. As a youth, I loved photography and the most I could afford was a ME Super (similar to the ME except with a 300 cc engine, no wait, that's Vespa...)

Yes. The company was first founded in 1919. The first Pentax LX was launched in 1980 and remained in production until 2001 with, I believe, little or no changes. It was Pentax's first (and only) OTF (off-the-film) metering camera, which was Pentax's answer to the Olympus OM series that feature the same technology. With OTF systems you can get the perfect exposure always as the shutter only closes when the film is properly exposed, and not based on a calculation made based on pre-exposure light measurements like the current in-finder systems do.

The LX is also a hybrid mechanical-electronic camera. With a battery it does automatic exposures but still retains limited manual use when the battery is flat. It also features interchangeable finders and focusing screens. If the Vespa LX were this innovative, it would have cleverly-hidden foot pedals for times when the gas runs out or you're feeling particularly eco-friendly, and interchangeable headlamps, headsets and handlebars to suit your mood!

I had a ME Super. Gawd, those push-buttons were annoying. To be honest it wasn't meant to be used frequently. Plus, it is so quiet it sounded more like a pedal bicycle rather than a 300cc.

edit: ahh, another similarity. Both companies like to use "Super" to denote their upgraded models.

[quote="WaspLover"]


Tangentially related...you know...Leica was not originally called Leica... It was originally "Leitz." And if you actually call Leica by its full name today--Leica Camera AG--it's a little redundant, bcs "Leica" was originally coined as a contraction of "Leitz Camera," so you're saying "Leitz Camera Camera AG."