Following its post-war reconstruction, Officina 8 within the Piaggio plant in Pontedera was home to the brand’s prestigious Experimental Department. This was the most cutting-edge area of the entire company, where the most daring projects took shape. From the end of the 1940s, this is where designers, draftsmen, mechanics, master metalworkers and test riders worked side by side - all highly-skilled professionals, many of whom had come from the aeronautical industry.
These were the years of rebirth, and the whole of Europe, working to get back on its feet after the dark wartime years, was swept up in an incredible burst of rebirth and creativity. A sense of rediscovered freedom and faith in a future just waiting to be built was the inspiration behind a host of visionary projects.
Officina 8 was where new ideas, including the most revolutionary, first came to life: the workshop saw the design and subsequent prototyping of the first Vespa, both for mass production and for racing and breaking records. The cut-outs for the metal workers, the special chassis models and the sand casting for the experimental engines were all created in-house. The prototype was then handed over to the road testers, who covered tens of thousands of kilometres on these bikes before deciding which to put into production, or which new competition vehicles to build. This is where the elegant lines and timeless style of the Vespa were born.
