The History of the Vespa

An Italian Miracle

Andrea Rapini

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429663482
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Despite the symbolic capital and the global commercial success of the Vespa scooter, there is no academic book dealing with its history, only literature produced by the company itself or by scooter enthusiasts. The origins of the Vespa are shrouded in mist, entrusted more to myth than to historical truth. Based on lengthy research carried out in Piaggio's historical archives and on an interdisciplinary approach, this volume aims to fill this gap. It shows how the Vespa took techniques from the most advanced aeronautical industries in the world, adapting and hybridizing them in an original way, and how the company disseminated its models in the transnational social space.

1
On the Wings of the Empire

1. Sea, Land and Sky

The Società Rinaldo Piaggio was established in 1884 in Sestri Ponente (Genoa/Liguria) by Enrico Piaggio and his 19-year-old son Rinaldo to work timber for ships. After only three years (1887), Rinaldo broke with his father to found the company Piaggio & Co.¹ Four partners joined him in this enterprise: Giuseppe Piaggio (Enrico’s brother and a ship-owner), Pietro Costa, Giacomo Pastorino and Nicolò Odero. The connection between the Piaggio and Odero families is particularly significant because it was destined to last for years, with a number of family ties.² Rinaldo, holding the largest share in the company (4/12), became CEO and went on to enjoy success in providing furnishings for large ships and steamers in the domestic market and, at times, also abroad (for the Imperial German Navy).

With the crucial support of his brother-in-law Attilio Odero, by the end of the century Rinaldo had bought up all the company shares.³ It was a promising period. Italy had entered a positive growth cycle which, fueled by the aid of the mixed banks, brought the country more in line with the most advanced economies. The second industrial revolution was making its mark on the boot as well. While sectors such as shipbuilding, heavy mechanics, the steel industry and naval equipment more closely associated with the defense of the state became stronger, a new landscape of production was gradually emerging, led by a few developing sectors: automotive, basic chemicals, electric, cement, electrochemical, electro-metallurgy and mechanical.

Rinaldo took advantage of these favorable conditions to diversify his business and, although the impact of railway track construction was more limited in Italy than it was in the US, he seized the opportunity offered by the railway industry.⁴ In 1908 he became president of the public limited company Officina di Finalmarina and began producing railway vehicles in a new factory in Finalmarina (Liguria), initially employing 300 workers which, a few years later, had become 700.

With the outbreak of the First World War (WWI), the Piaggio family began to mobilize for war. The Liguria-based group benefited from the state’s demand for the weapons and goods needed for military campaigns, a demand that changed the face of industry, increasing in particular the size, turnover and technological development of the aviation sector. The number of aircrafts in Italy grew from 382 in 1915 to 6,523 in 1918. Rinaldo rode the flow of this trend, not missing out on the chance to embark on a highly promising path toward a bright future.⁵ In 1916, the Finalmarina plant began repairing and manufacturing spare parts for airplanes, deep-water tugboats and Caproni 600 HP seaplanes under a license from Farman seaplanes. This was only the beginning, as aeronautics shortly proved to represent a strategic investment for the company. Rinaldo received so many government commissions he was forced to take production to the next level. This time, he opted to expand outside the region, and in 1917, he bought up the Officine Aeronautiche Francesco Oneto in Pisa (Tuscany), committing to filling military aviation orders for parts for the Caproni 450 HP aircraft and skids for Farman seaplanes.

At the end of the war, the company’s financial statement was unquestionably positive, as it was for all the sectors involved in industrial mobilization: on average, their reported earnings doubled. In the automotive sector, revenues even quadrupled. Piaggio had set out from shipbuilding and proceeded to aeronautics, passing through railways. He had varied his business portfolio, taking advantage of economies of diversification in the transportation field. His production in this field covered vehicles for the sky, land and sea without any wasted resources. In addition, he initiated a cautious form of vertical integration by looking for woodlands to buy to provide his factories with timber.⁶ He also maintained steady relations with certain aristocratic families at the center of the country’s economy as well as the Italian state, which was clearly becoming his main customer. Finally, he expanded geographically beyond his original area, conducting business in two regions (Liguria and Tuscany).

This continuous strategy adjustment influenced the corporate structure, leading to a rationalization of the latter in the aftermath of the war.⁷ Despite a change in ownership structure, Rinaldo’s leadership was unquestioned, and the enterprise thus retained this characteristic trait of personal capitalism. In 1920, the different production activities were brought together in a single container: the public limited company Piaggio & Co.⁸ This operation stemmed from a partnership between Attilio Odero and Rinaldo Piaggio, who were not only directors but also Chairman and CEO, respectively, together with Filippo Schiaffino. Both Odero and Piaggio held their offices until they died, the former in 1943 and the latter in 1938. After forming this partnership, the two entrepreneurs carried out other investments aimed at expanding the company’s presence in the world of aircraft. In 1923, they bought the Pegna-Bonmartini plant in Rome, not only to take over filling orders that had been already placed but also, and especially, to secure Giovanni Pegna’s creativity for themselves. Trained in Germany, Pegna was one of the most well-known Italian aeronautic designers. He headed the “study and testing office” of Sestri Ponente for the Piaggio family until the second half of the 1930s, when he began working for the Caproni company.⁹

It was in this context, marked by a lively aeronautic sector, growing key industrial groups and a number of merger operations, that Rinaldo made the decision in 1924 to locate his business in Pontedera, in the province of Pisa. He chose this town in Valdera for a number of reasons that made the location convenient and attractive. Here, he had the chance to purchase a mechanical workshop with the corps of skilled workers and equipment necessary to continue production without starting from scratch, thus avoiding the economic burden of training unskilled workers and buying all the necessary machinery. In fact, the Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali were the first municipal factories at the turn of the 1920s experienced in producing components and engines for racing cars and airplanes. Moreover, the proximity of vast agricultural areas as well as substantial pools of poverty were likely to provide a source of former agricultural labor over time, as workers could be tempted away from the land by industrial civilization’s concrete promise of emancipation.¹⁰ Finally, the location so near the coast ensured an important channel of communication and transportation that did eventually prove useful.

And, indeed, Rinaldo’s choice turned out to be extremely fruitful.

2. The Visible Hand … of the State

From the beginning of operations at the Pontedera plant, the Ministry of Aeronautics was the main purchaser of the Jupiter airplane engines assembled there under a license from the French company Gnome & Rhone.¹¹ In 1927, Rinaldo was appointed Senator of the Kingdom, a precious symbolic recognition that also ensured him a valuable public position for building relationships and making contacts with top-ranked figures in the regime. The bold approach of this newly born enterprise was rewarded that same year with an order for 400 engines, leading the board of directors to map a clear trajectory for future investments and developments: “towards the aeronautic industry […] our best energies are expressed.”¹²

Two years later, the Ministry ordered another 41 engines and 80 starter motors.¹³ The management’s strategy turned out to be successful. In the early 1930s, when the 1929 crisis arrived in Europe from America, the company’s privileged relationship with public orders allowed Piaggio to circumvent the collapse, avoiding not only the ruinous destiny faced by mixed banks and various industrial sectors but also the physiological fluctuations of the market.¹⁴ While the crisis impacted on Italy less seriously overall than it did on the US, Germany, France and the UK, this was solely due to the fact that the country was home to fewer companies and was less well integrated in international markets. At any rate, between 1929 and 1933 equity stocks were devalued by an average of 39%, the price index dropped from 102 to 75, unemployed workers increased from 300,000 to more than a million and the national income fell from 124 billion in 1929 to 116 billion in 1931 (measured at 1938 constant prices). As for industrial production, it fell by approximately 23%, in line with the European average.¹⁵

A few selected indicators are sufficient to highlight Piaggio’s health during the first decade of its life. In 1926, at the beginning of its operations, the Pontedera plant extended over 4,800 square meters and employed approximately 136 workers. In 1934, its workforce had risen to 6,950 and its territory reached 44,600 square meters.¹⁶ During this period, the company balance sheets incessantly reported the achievements of Pontedera as it increased the turnover and size of its plants, rocketing it towards the status of the most profitable corporate branch. In fact, its best results were yet to come.

Beginning in 1935, Italy for all intents and purposes entered a state of war that continued until 1945, from conquering Ethiopia to taking part in the Spanish civil war, invading Albania and, finally, entering WWII. The state’s military expenditures as well as demand for heavy industrial products consequentially grew.¹⁷ Aeronautics in particular represented a key resource for permanent mobilization on many levels, including symbolically.¹⁸ In 1935, therefore, the Ministry of Aeronautics issued an order “of particular urgency due to contingent political reasons.” The company was entrusted with so much work that it had to submit a request that it be exempted from complying “in a totalitarian way” with fascist Saturday in order to ensure on-time shipments.¹⁹

The close connection between the regime’s foreign policy and Piaggio can be seen in the composition of the company’s balance sheet. From the mid-1930s onwards, in fact, there were more and more items directly reflecting growth in production.²⁰ At the same time, overall turnover went from 156,901,809 ₤ in 1936 to 180 million ₤ in 1937 and then increased even further, totaling 197 million ₤ in 1938.²¹ The machinery sector displayed the most exceptional growth, as shown by the appearance of an extraordinary item in 1935—“Operating plants for exceptional production,” next to the “Ordinary plant” item—which doubled from 7 million to 14 million over the course of two years. The two items were subsequently combined, but this area nonetheless continued to increase, attesting to the company’s ongoing commitment to investment and involvement in the fascist war effort.²² This expansion proceeded even when Italy entered WWII: the item “Plants” reached 147,069,210 ₤ in 1941 and eventually 162,194,479 in 1942. In the same period, earnings remained consistently over 10 million ₤.²³

In short, from the Ethiopian war to the fall of Mussolini, the Piaggio company experienced an extremely positive period of quantitative growth. Suffice it to note that in 1943, the company nearly doubled its workforce (12,000 employees) and expanded its Pontedera plant to cover an area of 85,000 square meters indoors and 50,000 outdoors.²⁴ By order of the aeronautics administration, the original factory (Sezione 1) was supplemented by a second plant for the production of aircraft (P.108) in 1940: Sezione 2.²⁵

The evolution of Piaggio and that of the regime were thus closely intertwined. Very likely, Fascism granted Rinaldo the same level of favoritism it extended to other enterprises, such as the Terni steel plants, which manufactured a product that was key not only for the country’s military security but also for any industrial development plan it might hav...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 On the Wings of the Empire
• 2 The Genesis of the Vespa
• 3 Reconstruction
• 4 Workers
• 5 The Spectacle of the Vespa
• 6 Global Vespa
• Conclusion
• Index