Modern Vespa

found this on another vespa forum...

the vietnam factory begins production..

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/109686/Vespa-production-starts-in-Vietnam

Here's a link to a thread about the factory:

Vietnamese Vespa

There are links there to pics of it. Very clean and nice factory.

A Vietnamese worker assembles a scooter at a Piaggio plant in Vietnam

Wednesday June 24,2009

Italy's Piaggio has opened its first factory in Vietnam, aiming to produce 100,000 of its distinctive Vespa scooters a year.

The £19-million plant will manufacture 125 and 150cc Vespa scooters, said Roberto Colaninno, Piaggio Group's president.

"We consider Vietnam as an important market with high GDP growth, young generations and the number of scooters is one of the biggest in the world," he said.

Once it is fully in operation, the plant will employ about 350 workers. Each year it is expected to produce 100,000 scooters for the local market and for export to other countries in the region.

Last year, some 17,000 Vespa scooters were sold in Vietnam.

With a population of 87 million, Vietnam has more than 20 million motorbikes, most of them Japanese brands, according to official figures.

i hope they will keep quality up, also they should work on there paint quality, mine and other bikes i have heard of had a few scratches form the factory.

oh some bikes from vietnam were released already?

sign of the times I guess, I will always check country of origin with piaggio products from now on, right now I think its just the fly not being made in Italy (US market) but that will probably change. I know it dosent matter to some.