maandag 24 november 2014
woensdag 8 oktober 2014
vrijdag 3 oktober 2014
maandag 29 september 2014
dinsdag 23 september 2014
zondag 3 augustus 2014
Men who drive big
Trope: “men
who drove big”.
Peter Moore in Vroom With a View:
“I remember reading an interview with Tony Brancato, a Vespa mechanic in Meichhardt, the heart of Sidney’s little Italy, who said that men who drove big, loud motorccycles were just trying to prove their manhood. ‘Vespa riders’, he said, ‘are content with what they have and know how to use it.’ And discerning women knew that, he claimes.(227)
Thanks to the Movies...
Trope: Thanks to movies ...
Peter Moore in Vroom with a View:
Bikers have been viewed as rebels and outlaws for decades, thanks to movies like The Wild One and Easy Rider.
Deadwood Magazine - History, News, Photos and Features from the American Frontier
Then, the uniform of the day was skin-tight black jeans, black hobnail boots, black T-shirt or gray sweat shirt and, of course, a black leather jacket. Thanks to movies like "The Wild One" and "Easy Rider," this image of bikers has held fast.
Leather Leads the Pack Cruising Clothes Take a Ride on the Wild Side | News OK
Nowadays Vespa is an icon of “italianity” also thanks to movies like “Vacanze Romane” or “Talented Mr.Ripley”. To buy a Vespa now you must have some more money, but you will have a masterpiece of engineering and of italian design .
Vespa!!! An italian idea that moves the world... | Dolce Vita Choice
Peter Moore in Vroom with a View:
“Thanks to movies like The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, a Harley Davidson was seen as the domain of the dangerous loner. But there was something refreshing, reassuirng and imenently likeable about Vespas. And it wasn’t a disadvantage. The girls did dig them. On every Vespa poster, in so many movies, you’d always see a gorgeous girl on the back. And not some troubled vixen trying to get her back at her parents by going out with a bad boy, either. She was always a well-dressed, well-adjusted beauty with brains as well as as large breasts. At least, that’s how I saw it.” (228)
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| The Wild One |
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| Easy Rider |
vrijdag 1 augustus 2014
Vespa in films
Get ready for the return of the Vespa! - Firstpost
A bit of history for those who are unaware of how the Vespa became a phenomenon:
Piaggio rolled out its first Vespa in 1946. There were two- wheelers in that era, but Piaggio gave the world its first civilized scooter- it had a mud guard and the rider could sit on it in an upright position.
Four years later, Vespa made its movie debut in the Italian flick Sunday in August. But it really became a Hollywood star when Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn maneuvered a Vespa 125 through the Rome traffic in the 1953 classic Roman Holiday. Since then, the Vespa has featured in countless movies.
Dear Diary, the 1993 film has a sequence titled “In Vespa' - on the saddle of a 150 Sprint". In Alfie (2004), Jude Law wides a blue and white Vespa through the streets of Manhattan, while Nicole Kidman hops on a yellow Vespa in Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter (2005)
But the Vespa is also a Bollywood star! Back home, we saw Minnisha Laamba pllion riding a Vespa with Ranbir Kapoor in Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008). With 150 models, Vespa has a presence in 35 countries.
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| Nicole Kidman in The Interpreter |
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| Jude Las in Alfie |
Yuppies & Vespa
From Vroom with a View (Peter Moore):
Elsewhere 'Scooter Trash' - hard-core enthusiasts who rode and repaired their own bikes - were having a good old moan about yuppies buying all the well-restored Vespas as retro accessories. (17).
Vroom with a View: Movies & Vespa
From Vroom with a View (Peter Moore):
The idea to ride around Italy on a Vespa had first come to me as a teenager. It was a wet Sunday afternoon and I was watching TV. Weekend television in the seventies in Australia usually meant a Jerry Lewis movie or, if you were really unlucky, the twenty-fifth rerun of an Abbott and Costello flick. But that day some inspired soul at TCN 9 decided to show an old black and white Italian movie starring Sophia Loren.To this day I can't recall which movie it was. I have zero recall of the plot and couldn't tell you for the life of me which other actors were in it. But I do remember with startling clarity that it involved Sophia riding a Vespa around the cobbled streets of a tiny Italian village, and that the grainy image stirred something in me. There, on the screen of our battered Grundig, I saw the epitome of style, sophistication and dropdead gorgeousness. I also realised with a Neanderthal teenage 'huh!' that Sophia Loren wasn't too bad, either.I kept an eye out for Italian movies from that moment on. Whether it was a home-grown classic, such as La Dolce Vita, or one of the Hollywood variety, such as Roman Holiday, there seemed to be one incontrovertible truth: all a guy had to do to look cool was jump on a Vespa and buzz down to a café, a beach or glamorous nightclub. No matter the time of day or night, there would always be a clutch of beautiful women with large,dangerously pointy breasts waiting to flirt with him. And once he threw his leg over a Vespa, even with a three-day growth and crumpled suit he was nonchalant style personified. To a young guy still wearing flannelette shirts and ugh boots in the western suburbs of Sydney it was a heady revelation indeed.So it became my dream to go to Italy and buy a Vespa - an older one, with saddle seats and a little too much chrome. I'd ride around the countryside drinkingespresso and flirting with women with curvaceous figures and dark, burning eyes. I'd the live la dolce vita, the sweet life, like Marcello Mastroianni, in a sharp suit and Ray Bans. And, naturally, I would look - and be - exceedingly cool.It remained just a dream through my teens and my twenties, when getting a degree and a job became my main priority. And in my thirties, too, although the sight of Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon on a Vespa in The Talented Mr Ripley did have me contemplating the idea of chucking it all in and running away to Italy for a couple of weeks.(14-15)
donderdag 31 juli 2014
To Sophia Loren
The writer in conversation with the owners of a restaurant.
“Just as our conversation – and the spumante – was in danger of drying up, the manager’s wife looked me in the eye and asked me if I had given my Vespa a name.The thought havd never crossed my mind. I’ve never been one for naming vehicles. My mum is. She names her cars before the registration papers have been transferred. She had Buttercup, the yellow Toyota Corona, stationwagon, and Morrie the Magna, and her current car is Connie the Cresida. But I have never been motivated to give any of my vehicles a name. It was always the Datsun or the Suzuki, mostly with an expletive-riddled prefix added. I had never dignified a vehicle that I owned with a name.‘You should call her Sophia,’ the manager’s wife said. ‘When I was a gril I called my Vespa Sophia after Sophia Loren. She was my high-spirited friend, making me do things I was otherwise too timid to do’.I thought about it, and although I was opening myself up to ribbing from mum after all the grief I gave her about naming her vehicles, I agreed. After all, it was the old black and white movies of Sophia Loren that had inspired me to do this trip in the first place.‘For luck, with your journey,’ the manager’s wife said raising her glass.We all clinked glasses, and I hesitated befor taking a sip. ‘To Sophia,’ I said.‘To Sophia’, they replied with gusto. (p.76-77)
vrijdag 11 juli 2014
Vespa Verhuur Gent
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| Vespa verhuur La Bella Vespa Geniet van het mooie en gezellige Gent met zijn historische gebouwen, musea, winkels en gezellige terrassen. De schilderachtige Leiestreek met o.a. het kunstenaarsdorp Sint- Martens- Latem, het pittoreske Deurle, één van de mooiste dorpen van Vlaanderen en de omgeving van het Kasteel van Ooidonk, of de wondermooie heuvelachtige Vlaamse Ardennen, het Toscane van Vlaanderen |
donderdag 10 juli 2014
Vespa: Bollywood
How the Vespa Can Save the World - Innovation Insights
This summer, Vespa worked with Bollywood heartthrob Siddharth Malhotra to unveil a new scooter model, the VX, made especially for the Indian market and available for sale later this year. No detail was overlooked: a touch of chrome, a new beige seat and tubeless tires to provide extra comfort. Even the custom palette -- “Portovenere Verde” (metallic green of the Ligurian coast) and “Vibrante Rosa” (dual tone red and pink), a color that the famous Vogue editor Diana Vreeland once called the “navy blue of India” – were meant to reverberate with the world’s largest democracy’s enormous and upwardly mobile middle class while paying homage to the Vespa’s roots.
Read more:
Vespa Scooter Design
Vespa Scooter
http://www.patricktaylor.com/vespa-scooter
http://www.patricktaylor.com/vespa-scooter
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| Vespa Scooter The Vespa is the world's most famous scooter. First manufactured in Italy by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. in 1946, it has been described by the Times newspaper as the most completely Italian product since the Roman chariot. |
Scooterfile
ScooterFile is dedicated to producing, curating, and sharing news, reviews and opinion in the world of scooters. Founded in response to a gap in two-wheeled news coverage, ScooterFile exists to specifically serve an audience of scooter enthusiasts. Press outlets abound to cover motorcycles and ATVs, but whenever these publications cover scooters (which is rare), this coverage usually comes from a motorcyclist point of view. Founded by a scooterist, for scooterists, ScooterFile exists to provide a new point of view in covering the two-wheeled world.
maandag 7 juli 2014
Behind Bars: Patrignani
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| Behind Bars: Simple Love: 1979 Vespa P200 Touring, and Reunion with Guest Author, Conchscooter from KWD. |
Vespa Traveller: Bettinlli
Legendary Vespa traveller Giorgio Bettinlli died in China from a sudden illness on 16 September 2008 at the age of 53. He had lived there for 4 years, on the banks of the Mekong, with his wife Yapei.Giorgio got his first Vespa in 1992 aged 37. Living in a village in Indonesia, a friend gave him an old Vespa which he promptly rode through the country. Upon returning to Italy he continued his Vespa adventures on a grander scale and it’s probadly easier to list the countries where Bettinelli didn’t travel, rather than where he did.Travelling upon a simple Vespa PX, with his guitar and backpack, Bettinelli did things that many of us never achieve in our lives. Surprisingly, he had little mechanicals knowledge. When asked what he did if the Vespa ever broke down, he replied “ You wait. Someone comes, someone helps. Acar, a truck, a camel. An hour, a day. Someone comes, someone helps.”
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| The Scooterist: Giorgio Bettinelli – RIP |
Vespa: Solex
Films & Architecture: “My Uncle” | ArchDaily
„In contrast, Uncle Hulot, the quintessential poète des terrains vagues, lives in a small old corner of the city. He is unemployed, and gets around town either on foot or on a rather tired VéloSoleX”.
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| JF Le Helloco » Balade en Solex sur les traces de Jacques Tati |
zondag 6 juli 2014
Kaster: Appian Way
Robert A. Kaster, The Appian Way,
The Roman poet Statius called the Via Appia the Queen of Roads, and for nearly a thousand years that description held true, as countless travelers trod its path from the center of Rome to the heel of Italy. Today, the road is all but gone, destroyed by time, neglect, and the incursions of modernity; to travel the Appian Way today is to be a seeker, to walk in the footsteps of ghosts. Our guide to those ghosts - and the layers of history they represent - is Robert A. Kaster. In The Appian Way , he brings a lifetime of studying Roman literature and history to his adventures along the ancient highway. A footsore Roman soldier pushing the imperial power south; craftsmen and farmers bringing their goods to the towns that lined the road; pious pilgrims headed to Jerusalem, using stage-by-stage directions we can still follow - all come to life once more as Kaster walks (and drives - and suffers car trouble) on what's left of the Appian Way. Other voices help him tell the story: Cicero, Goethe, Hawthorne, Dickens, James, and even Monty Python offer commentary, insight, and curmudgeonly grumbles, their voices blending like the ages of the road to create a telescopic, perhaps kaleidoscopic, view of present and past. To stand on the remnants of the Via Appia today is to stand in the pathway of history. With The Appian Way , Kaster invites us to close our eyes and walk with him back in time, to the campaigns of Garibaldi, the revolt of Spartacus, and the glory days of Imperial Rome. No traveler will want to miss this fascinating journey.
vrijdag 4 juli 2014
Vespa Museum Pontedera
Vespa Scooter Museum in Italy - YouTube
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| Vespa Museum |
In October of 2000 my wife and I took a tour of the Vespa Museum in Pontedera, Italy. Here you will see early prototype Vespa scooters as well as classics like the Vespa GS and 90SS. If you ever go to Italy and are near Pisa be sure to go see this excellent Museum!
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