Vespa 46 concept for production?

The Vespa 46 concept scooter, or Quaranta Sei, shown at the 2011 EICMA motorcycle exhibition in Milan was one of the stars of the show, combining the charm of the original 1946 Vespa MP6 with a smooth, modern aesthetic.

Though the Vespa 46 scooter is a concept only, there is a movement within the company to build the vehicle and in a recent chat to Mark Franklin, the Managing Director of Piaggio Asia Pacific, we get the impression it's more likely to become a reality than not.

"We showed it as an ideal version of what we'd love to do with Vespa," said Franklin of the Vespa 46 concept. "At the moment we're evaluating: could it go into production? Could we build it?"

The Vespa 46 Concept shown at EICMA 2011 was powered by the company's new three-valve single, a 125cc air-cooled engine that pumps out around 12hp (9kW) at 8250rpm. However Franklin said that engine was just an example and any of the company's new engines would work -- and they range between 50 and 500cc.

"It has one of our new three-valve engines which can be 50, 125, 150, 300, 500 -- whatever the market decides we need. We do market studies and normally what happens is we take a cue from Europe, so we'd do 125 or 150."

British-born Franklin, whose jurisdiction includes Australia, stated that: "If Europe was on its feet I would say that it would (go) into production in a year. But it's not on its feet so we have to basically do a lot of exploratory work and speak to each market individually and go, look; at this price point what could you sell? What would you need, what capacity would you like, what other features do you like? Then we can take a decision to see if it financially stacks up."

Piaggio's Asia Pacific chief mentioned that two possible paths to production were available. The profitable path, where the company builds 70,000 or 100,000 Vespa 46s for example, or the loss-making path, where just 1000 or so are made and sold to the highest bidders, where the scooter would be a collectable halo model that served to promote the brand.

He said the parent company would rather take the former path.

"As you know all Vespas are made from metal, so the moulds alone to create something so complex are very, very expensive. We have to have a certain volume that’s achievable."

However the thinking inside the Piaggio group is surprisingly positive. The company wants to take the Vespa 46 from concept to production, and Franklin said that while a healthy business case is important, it's not crucial to the 46's production.

"It won't just be made on a pure financial decision because we have to understand really what this could do in terms of value for the Vespa brand what it could do for Vespa. There's this sort of intangible element that we always look at before we make these decisions.

"Although the financial side of things is important, I think everything about Vespa is based on emotion, it's not only based on the balance sheet. So sometimes we take decisions that aren't financially viable because we just want to build the thing, it's as simple as that. At the moment we're in that stage, looking at what we can do."

Even Piaggio's CEO and Chairman, Roberto Colaninno, is seriously considering green-lighting production of the bike, and Franklin conveyed that the response from the media and the public at EICMA was very positive.

"Response was better than we thought at the show. We showed it as an example of what we hope to do and it galvanised our CEO's position in that he'd really like to do it and if he can get everyone's agreement and make it stack up I think he'd love to produce this. Everyone loved it."

"We're hoping, and we're doing as much work as we can internally, to get this thing to a production-ready bike," concluded Franklin.