★ The origin and development of piaggio
Let's take a look at piaggio, an Italian manufacturing company, which was founded in 1884 and originally produced locomotives and carriages. After World War I, piaggio turned to the military field. At that time, submarines, planes (including seaplanes) and military vehicles were produced. In 1930s, the production of aircraft became the most important business in piaggio, which set a world record of 2 1 in related industries, the most representative of which was piaggio's four-engine heavy bomber.
In the 1940s, piaggio's business continued to expand, producing trains, navigation equipment, trucks, buses and even cable cars. Unfortunately, the factory was bombed by the allied forces during World War II. Piaggio, which resumed production after the war, may have been affected by the war and decided to expand its business. They thought that in order to produce civilian products closer to the Italian people, the first thing they tried was a scooter named "Donald Duck", which was named after the appearance of the vehicle resembling a duck. The prototype is called MP5 (moat? Piaggio? Fifth place).
The person in charge of the company (the son of the founder of piaggio) was dissatisfied with this Donald Duck MP5 and asked the aviation designer to rebuild it. The appearance of the vehicle should be simple, both men and women can drive, can carry people, and the driver should be decent. Finally, the designer directly connected the gearbox with the rear wheel, eliminating the transmission part. Compared with "Donald Duck", the car body has been simplified a lot, and the metal decorative plate with load-bearing function has been optimized ... The owner saw the redesigned MP6 and shouted "It looks like a wasp!" After that, the Italian word Vespa became a branch brand of piaggio Company.
Since the 1940s, piaggio almost gave up aviation projects and began to concentrate on developing Vespa motorcycles. They registered a patent covering the integrated body and adopted efficient assembly line production technology. Since 1946 first appeared at Milan Auto Show, the annual sales volume of Vespa has gradually increased. In 1950,1946 sold 60,000 vehicles in Italy. After the film Roman Holiday was released on 1953, it caused a sensation all over Europe, and everyone became obsessed with Vespa in the film, so that the sales of Vespa motorcycles exceeded 65,438+million.
Vespa is booming in Europe, and piaggio's parent company has been promoting the development of motorcycle industry. 1948, based on Vespa scooter, piaggio made a tricycle named Ape Ape. At first, it produced a pickup version, and later it added a van version. The purpose is to make it easier for street operators to do business in small Italian cities. Attention, piaggio Ape tricycle, is it very similar to the green triple jump that appeared on the streets of China in 1980s and 1990s?
After 1950s, piaggio was acquired by Fiat Auto Company. 1964, piaggio aviation railway business and scooter business were completely separated. 1969, piaggio acquired the long-established Geely motorcycle manufacturer in Europe. 1990, Sfera, the first plastic body scooter in piaggio, came out. 1994, Hexagon, a large scooter from piaggio, went on the market. 1999, piaggio opened the first Vespa boutique in LA. In 2004, piaggio signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Zongshen Group; Acquired April and Moto in the same year? Guz.
In this way, piaggio's most important motorcycle brand must be Vespa, but its parent company piaggio itself does not seem to develop step by step like a regular car company. It was not until 2000 that piaggio steadily developed and produced scooters. 200 1, the big wheel Fukang scooter went on the market. In 2006, piaggio MP3 inverted tricycle came out.
Let's take a look at the piaggio Liberty light scooter launched by 1997. Vehicles * * * have four kinds of power: 50cc, 125cc and 150cc and 200cc, and these engines are also air-cooled machines carried by different Vespa models, including two-stroke and four-stroke engines. In addition to people choosing piaggio Liberty scooter as their daily means of transportation, it has also become a popular model for European postmen.
However, piaggio's product line is far from rich compared with its sub-brand Vespa, but the mission of each piaggio motorcycle seems to be more important. After piaggio introduced the Liberty light scooter, Beverly with larger displacement and larger body was introduced. Seven years later, piaggio once again enriched its product line, and the 150 class large rim scooter named Medley went on the market.
★ Feel the modern scooter in piaggio.
Piaggio Medley is a product between Liberty, a light vehicle, and Beverly, a medium and large pedal, which means the target should be the best-selling model in Piaggio brand. Medley's design is more avant-garde than the first two. Because of the uneven blue brick floor left by many old cities in Europe, it continues the design of large-size wheels. However, such a big foot design makes us look uncoordinated, but this is piaggio's style.
Although Medley is a scooter, it can still be seen from the appearance that it has a strong Italian design. If you think this car is very different from Japanese or Taiwan Province scooter, and this European appearance is unacceptable, just imagine that if you put on a suit or a pair of jeans and shirts, riding this car will be more harmonious than a T-shirt with shorts. This is an Italian design.
2020 medley is a new model just introduced in China. It's not a replacement product, just a change in some details. It can be seen that Italians are still relatively conservative. The biggest change of the whole vehicle is that the pointer instrument has been replaced by a liquid crystal electronic watch. As a scooter, there are not so many configurations, so the content display font of electronic instruments is large and the content arrangement is simple and clear. In addition, LED headlights can be regarded as modern standard configuration.
Different from riding a motorcycle, convenience is the biggest feature of a scooter. Piaggio is conservative and practical in this respect, such as the design of pedal position. Usually Japanese pedals enlarge the area of this position and put their feet on the inclined plane. Looking at Medley again, Italians will never allow drivers to take a loose driving posture in the car, which is very conservative. In terms of practicality, two full helmets of normal size can be put down under the car seat.
In terms of power, Medley imported from China is equipped with 155cc water-cooled engine, with maximum power1/kw and peak torque 14.4 Nm, which is among the best in its class. Different from the current Vespa 150cc and 300cc air-cooled engines, the Medley 150 water-cooled engine runs more smoothly with less jitter. It can be said that Vespa has a strong inheritance and is relatively conservative, but the main brand in piaggio has taken care of more practicality.
In terms of riding experience, I found two female pedal owners to communicate with Medley once. One is Xiao Dan, the owner of Peugeot Jiangge, and the other is Vespa? GTS？ 300 car owner Li Jie. Let's see what they think of Medley. After all, girls are more careful and often have obvious differences with boys in expressing their sense of car.
Xiao Dan belongs to a petite girl. Actually, Jiangge is a large scooter for her, but the advantage is that the center of gravity of the vehicle is low, which makes Xiao Dan feel no pressure to drive. However, before I gave Medley to her, I told her repeatedly that 790mm was a big man in the scooter, and asked her to pay close attention to this.
After riding for dozens of kilometers, Xiao Dan's first reaction was that Medley was easy to ride, the vehicle jitter was much smaller than Django's, and the car was quiet. Dynamic performance made her afraid to try to accelerate the throttle. In addition, she obviously feels that the traffic is very large and the road bumps are relatively few. However, there are also some aspects that she doesn't like or adapt to. Medley's wheels are sitting upright, which leads to a high center of gravity of the vehicle. Xiao Dan, who is used to riding a scooter with a low center of gravity, maintained great awe when turning in medley. Later, I told her that the relatively high center of gravity design in motorcycles would make vehicle handling more flexible.
Next, as the owner of Vespa, Li Jie should be regarded as a degraded test driver. Her own scooter has higher displacement and brand than Medley. Moreover, Li Jie, who is about 1.75 meters tall, has certain requirements for the spatial performance of scooters, otherwise he would not choose a 300-level scooter. Besides, her car age and mileage are much larger than Xiao Dan's.
After the test drive in Medley, Li Jie said that the functions of pulse ignition and start-stop are very good, mainly for convenience. When waiting for the traffic lights, the car will stop automatically, and the engine will react quickly when the throttle is released, and it is still easy to get rid of most automatic starts. Secondly, she thinks Medley is more comfortable to ride than her own Vespa? 300 is better, it is light and shock-proof, but in the end, she thinks that most people buy motorcycles for face value and return rate. Medley has no choice in all aspects, but design is the key factor that makes her unable to choose.
Summary:
Military aviation enterprises give piaggio a unique advantage in machinery manufacturing. In addition, it is one of the first European manufacturers to produce scooters. After successfully building the Vespa brand, piaggio made every car in parent brand seriously. As the main vehicle in the brand, Medley has won the market recognition for its excellent handling, dynamic performance and workmanship, but the relatively pure European design has lowered the development achievements of Medley in China. (Figure/text? Car home? Zhu xuzhen? Assist in filming: Wang Meng, Li Jie, Zhang)