Tag Archives: D’Ascanio

Planet of the Bee’s – Piaggio Ape Cross Country

It is well known that Rolls Royce once avoided extreme embarrassment in Germany by a last minute change of name of one of their models from Silver Mist to Silver Shadow.

Piaggio Ape Cross Country

It must be questioned if inventor of the Vespa scooter Corradino D’Ascanio and Enrico Piaggio who’s company manufactured the scooters were aware of the English meaning of “Ape” when they named their chose the name for their three wheeled pick up in 1947 or if they were just monkeying around.”Ape” pronounced ‘ah-peh’ in Italian translates to bee in English.

Piaggio Ape Cross Country

Ape’s have been in continuous production since then with a variety of motors this 2004 model has a 49 cc / 3 cui motor which allegedly has good torque though low gearing keeps the top speed down to around 40 mph.

Piaggio Ape Cross Country

As well as being a tremendous success in Italy variants of the Ape are even more popular in India where the design serves as the most numerous form of motorised Taxi known as tuk-tuks which are manufactured by Piaggio India.I well remember a hair raising ride on a tuk tuk in New Dehli many years ago which convinced me that if I wished to leave India alive I’d probably best taking four wheeled transport for the rest of my stay.

Piaggio Ape Cross Country

But after I took a ride on a New Dehli bus and I was not so sure that was any safer.

Thanks for joining me on this busy bee edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

PS Don’t forget …

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