Selasa, 16 November 2010





Piaggio MP3











At the While riding along with Phil from Pride of Cleveland Scooters, dozens of drivers and pedestrians asked about the extra wheel, and many more rubbernecked as we passed. market. It’s certainly an attention-getter, even in Henry Ford Black, Corporate Fleet Silver, and Executive Maroon, the less-than-a-rainbow of colors provided for the U.S. I had the opportunity to ride the 250cc version this weekend, and I was suitably impressed.

The Gilera Fuoco, a 500cc version with a sportier body, is also in the works — but even less likely to be sold in the U.S. The 400cc model appears to utilize the same frame as the smaller models. models, so it’s unclear if and when we can expect the 34 HP 400cc version here (though we can still be thankful we’re not stuck with the seemingly-pointless 125cc version). Sadly, Piaggio’s 4-stroke, 4-valve Master engine (with liquid cooling and electronic injection) is not currently available in any U.S. Even a tech-junkie with a fat wallet would be happy to settle for a Vespa GTS until the MP3 400 ie arrives.

It appears only a small fraction of those sales were in the U.S., where a $7,000 (MSRP) 250cc scooter is a hard sell, especially with a well-publicized 400cc version on the horizon. Piaggio claims 150,000 MP3s were sold in the last nine months. Coincidentally, on Saturday, I finally got to ride an MP3 250, so finally, I can write about the MP3 with a bit of first-hand experience. On Monday, Piaggio officially announced their MP3 400 ie three-wheeled scooter.