Today, when we think of personal mobility vehicles, we think of electric scooters, Segways, folding bikes. But in 1946, it wasn’t like this. The king of micromobilty was the bike (or our own feet), and only a few people had the privilege of owning a motorcycle. However, in those times of difficulties, Italian motor vehicle manufacturer Piaggio decided to dare, by choosing Corradino d’Ascanio, an exceptional designer (we’ll get into that later) and counting on a hitherto-unseen vehicle: the Vespa.

The development of the Vespa wasn’t an easy one: the first prototype was the MP5 designed by Roberto Spolti, and to compare it with the Fiat Topolino (“Mickey Mouse”), it was christened “Paperino” (“Donald Duck”). It was beautiful, but it wasn’t right: it still looked too much like a motorcycle, and Enrico Piaggio had made it very clear: we needed something cheap, accessible to everyone and, most importantly, new. And then, came d’Ascanio.