The Lambretta Siluro (torpedo), an enigmatic red metal capsule a couple of meters long, which could contain everything from a bicycle to a spaceship, contains the history of postwar Italy. And that Italy, it is known, is a running Italy. Racing for reconstruction, racing for reorganization, and racing for innovation.
As soon as the war ended, Piaggio set about transforming aircraft designs into monocoque scooters, and in 1946 the Vespa was born. Innocenti, on the other hand, who knew a thing or two about pipes – the Innocenti pipes of all contemporary scaffoldings are his patent – focused as well on aeronautical know-how, but he also observed American military scooters, in a newly liberated Rome.
