Piaggio testing 850cc scooter with radical new electronic gearbox

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April 19, 2005 Italian scooter magazine Cyberscooter has published pictures of is believed to be the prototype of a Gilera Nexus 850 scooter undergoing pre-release testing on Italian roads. That’s 850 as in 850cc – the largest megascooter seen to date. The convergence paradigm appears to be inspiring all manner of marketplace morphing with the scooter and motorcycle industries clearly now beginning to overlap. In less than a decade the maxi scooter has grown from the once humble Italian invention, the scooter into a powerful pseudo sports motorcycle. The Nexus 850 scooter is believed to have been under development since early 2003, with a radical new electronic gearbox that was showcased in the Gilera 850 V-twin Ferro concept machine at the 2003 Milan Motorcycle Show. The new gearbox can change gears some ten times faster than mere mortals, offering a significant performance improvement, if that’s needed on an 850 scooter.

The scooter was invented in 1947 as a low cost alternative to the automobile in war-ravaged Europe – it was designed as transport for the masses and it caught on so quickly that it became one of the great transport phenomena to sweep the world in the 20th century.

The Vespa (which means “wasp” in Italian) was the result of Enrico Piaggio’s determination to create a viable alternative to the automobile for the masses and was built from the ashes of one of the centres of aeronautical production in Pontedera in Italy.

Enrico Piaggio’s decision to enter the light mobility business was based on economic assessments and sociological considerations. It took shape thanks to the successful co-operation of the aeronautical engineer and inventor Corradino D’Ascanio (1891-1981).

The origins of the scooter

A motor scooter was produced, based on a small motorcycle made for parachutists. The prototype, known as the MP 5, was nicknamed “Paperino” (the Italian name for Donald Duck) because of its strange shape, but Enrico Piaggio did not like it, and he asked Corradino D’Ascanio to redesign it.

Corradino D’Ascanio only needed a few days to refine his idea and prepare the first drawings of the Vespa, first produced in Pontedera in April 1946. It got its name from Enrico Piaggio himself who, looking at the MP 6 prototype with its wide central part where the rider sat and the narrow “waist”, exclaimed, “It looks like a wasp!” And so the Vespa was born. For the incredible Vespa and Piaggio scooter story, see our history here.

The birth of the MaxiScooter

Though history has seen many large capacity scooters, the first significant move in the modern era of scooters came in 1986 when Honda introduced a 250 scooter known in various markets as the Fusion, Helix or CN250.

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