“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)
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
“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)
 |
| The Wild One |
 |
| Easy Rider |
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.
 |
| Nicole Kidman in The Interpreter |
 |
| Jude Las in Alfie |
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).
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)
