Scooters shine at EICMA

Big scooters were battling it out in Milan with three manufacturers pitching into what is a huge market in Italy. Pre-recession, Yamaha sold more than 17,000 examples of the T-Max in one year alone, and it’s still by far the most popular superscoot in the land of the Vespa, pulling in an astonishing
65-75 per cent of the big scooter market.

For 2012 Yamaha is hoping its completely new T-Max will boost its share even further, but for Italians all the talk is of the two new BMWs. These are direct rivals to the Yamaha but they wear a badge that carries much weight in the posing stakes, and the Italians I spoke to all reckon the new C600 Sport and C650 GT will hammer T-Max sales. In the UK the BMWs are even priced below the T-Max, so although sales of these scooters here are small, still it looks like BMW will do well comparatively. Quite possibly, the entry of BMW to this sector could even give it a major boost by lending it credibility in the eyes of the general public.

Meanwhile Aprilia has been indulging more in badge engineering, replacing the Gilera name on the V-twin GP800 with its own and giving it a restyle.
The other notable scooter event was the display of the Vespa 46, a supposed concept which was given vast amounts of space and which looked too well detailed not to be well down the road to production. Expect that in no more than a year.

The SRV850 borrows not just its looks from the RSV4 superbike but the triple headlights themselves, while the colours and rest of the styling are closely related. The taillight meanwhile comes from the Dorsoduro 1200. More importantly, Aprilia has reworked the suspension, something of a weak point on the original Gilera.

The GT has a more upright riding position, larger screen, and bulkier bodywork with more storage space in the tail, although the Sport still has enough for two helmets.

The bodywork is all-new, more aggressive and angular than before, and the general riding dynamics are more sporty too. But it doesn’t come with ABS in all markets because of the cost.

So unless the Milan show throng collectively sticks its fingers down its throat at the sight of the sleek and stylish machine, we’ll be seeing this in Vespa showrooms possibly before the end of next year. Fine by us, it looks knockout!