Scooter madness

How American intervention, an undergroundeconomy and Cold War politics created the world’slast stockpile o classic Italian scooters.By

Tom DiChristopher.

Saigon Scooter Centre is located down an alleyway in HCM City’sDistrict 12, hidden behind the coee shops and orchid stalls thatline the boulevard to Tan Son Nhat International Airport. Withthe nationwide popularity o Honda—the word or motorbike in Vietnam is xe Honda—you’d think the Scooter Centre would be amecca or Japanese motorbike enthusiasts. But step inside, andyou’re transported to a more ar-o land: Italy.Among his stock o 50s and 60s-era Vespas and Lambrettas,owner Patrick Joynt has more than a ew vintage motorbikes, roma WWII-era Excelsior to a German Zundapp 50cc. But there’s areason his collection—perhaps the best in Southeast Asia—is domi-nated by Italian classics. Vietnam is the last place on Earth you’llnd a stockpile o classic Vespas and Lambrettas.“Even the Italian classic scooter market dried up years ago,” saysJoynt. “I mysel and riends were going over there on buying tripsin the mid 1980s, and the country has been pillaged since, leavingvery ew classic scooters.”Joynt has been in Vietnam or twelve years now, hunting downand restoring scooters, exporting hundreds overseas and keepingothers or his personal collection. The history o Italian scooters in Vietnam, however, stretches back to the 1950s, during the waningdays o French colonialism. That history continued into the 60s andearly 70s, when the South’s changing global alliances infuencedthe boom and bust o the Vietnamese scooter market.For more than 25 years, Vietnam’s classic scooters wouldremain an undiscovered national treasure, hidden away like timecapsules carrying stories rom the Cold War.

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Our Story Begins in Italy

They say that necessity is the mother o invention.In the case o the Vespa and Lambretta, the samewas also true o design.Today, both brands are widely regarded as iconso a bygone era, but in 1946 they provided a practi-cal means to an end, a way orward in the post-waryears when the country’s industry and inrastruc-ture were devastated.Enrico Piaggio, head o Italy’s leading aeronau-tics company, aced a crisis on two ronts. Not onlywas Italy’s aircrat industry subjected to restrictionsas part o peace agreements, but his two actoriesin Tuscany had been plundered by retreating Ger-man orces and were eventually reduced to rubbleduring strategic Allied bombing.Ater brokering the return o his machinery,Piaggio assessed the economic realities and socialneeds o post-war Italy. He decided that what hiscountrymen needed was an aordable and practi-cal orm o light transportation. Inspired by Alliedmotorcycles, he commissioned a design or a sleek,modern motorbike or the masses.Unhappy with the rst prototype (the Paperino),Piaggio turned to aeronautical designer GeneralCorradino D’Ascanio. The general disliked conven-tional motorcycles and took the opportunity tocorrect what he saw as their dening faws. To keepthe driver clean, he incorporated a shield-like rontand replaced the greasy drive chain with a meshtransmission. By positioning the engine beneathrather than in ront o the seat, he let legroom toaccommodate women. A supporting arm similarto airplane landing gear made the small tyres easyto change, and the handlebar-mounted gear levermade shiting a snap.Upon seeing the nished prototype, Piaggio issaid to have exclaimed, “Sembra una vespa!” (“Itlooks like a wasp”). Italy shared his enthusiasm—the Vespa was an immediate success. Within a ewyears, demand led Piaggio to license production toactories across Europe and in Brazil and India.Another industrialist who saw his actoryrazed during the war, Ferdinando Innocenti, aceda longer road to success with his product—theLambretta—despite having gone into research anddevelopment beore the war had ended.Innocenti was inspired by the U.S.-made Cush-man motorbikes and began to consider using hisrolled tubing industry to produce a similar model.But even ater Piaggio’s success with the sleek,aerodynamic Vespa, Innocenti insisted on a designwith an exposed rear-mounted engine, which heound beautiul. Following months o buzz thatzzled into skepticism as Inncoenti struggled toget it right, public response to the rst Lambrettamodel was lukewarm, and many o the bikes wereshipped to Argentina.The second Lambretta incarnation dialed itin closer with better suspension and a handlebar-mounted gear lever. The third model, the1950 Lambretta 125 LC incorporated a luxurious,streamlined body with sleek, elongated back panels.Innocenti nally got it right with 1951’s D model.With both Vespa and Lambretta in ull produc-tion, the stage was set or the scooter boom toexplode into a craze.

Meanwhile in Vietnam

Ater Vietnam renewed relations with America inthe early 90s, journalist Henry Kamm returned to Vietnam to capture the country at a crossroads.He’d been a correspondent during the war, andound that a ew things had picked up right wherethey’d let o:“Trac is at least as chaotic as it was in theearlier days, and Communist rigor has notprevailed against the penchant o the Saigo-nese to break the social contract or mutualsaety symbolized by trac lights or one-waystreet signs. The young have revived the grimlyunromantic pre-1975 Sunday-evening mat-ing ritual, in which endless swarms o boysdrive their girlriends on their two-wheelers,at maximum speed and noise levels, rom thesquare around the Roman Catholic cathedraldown General Uprising Street to the riverrontand back up the parallel one-way streets.”Kamm’s remembrances o Vietnam’s streets, aswell as the archive o photos at Saigon ScooterCentre depicting proud owners posing on their Ital-ian bikes, are evidence that Saigon was very much apart o the global scooter craze o the 50s and 60s.

22 aslife HCMC

Throughout the war, businessmen imported whatwere previously luxuries—refrigerators, radios, motorbikes—rather than capital goods like factoriesand machinery